# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, i 

t : # 

# — J 

| UMTED STATES OF AMERICA.* 



WORDS OF A FRIEND 



FOUNDATION, DIFFICULTIES, HELPS, 
AND TRIUMPHS 



RELIGIOUS LIFE. 



REV. HENRY A. MILES, D. D. 




BOSTON: 
NICHOLS AND NOYES, 

No. 117 Washington Street. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
Henry A. Miles, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED BT II. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



PREFACE. 



This book contains a few practical sermons, 
taken from the traditional barrel which has been 
filled and turned over in a professional service of 
forty years ; and if any, through a personal inter- 
est in the author, should read these discourses, he 
hopes that a unity of purpose will be seen in them, 
although they were written at different times, and 
amid the diversified circumstances of ordinary pul- 
pit duty. 

Following a view of the basis on which all re- 
ligion rests, a glance is given to the invitations it 
presents, the obstacles interposed, the worth of the 
spiritual nature to be educated, the helps offered 
through a Divine and transforming Teacher, and 
gained by a holy life, introspection, a resolute will, 
and the Divine strength ; to which succeed a refer- 
ence to right views of life, the hope of immortality, 
the believer's joy, the Christian aspect of death ; 
and the whole is concluded by a sermon on prob- 
able memories in heaven. 



IV 



PREFACE. 



Of course, there is no full discussion of any one 
topic ; but perhaps there may be found here some 
of the leading thoughts that belong to a Treatise 
on a Religious Life, 

The Author knows full well that these sermons 
will not have the slightest interest beyond here 
and there one to whom he sustains affectionate re- 
lations ; and to such, especially to young men 
of his acquaintance, he gives this volume, with 
every expression of love, as the Words of a Friend. 

Longwood, March \, 1870, 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON I. 

PAGE 



The Reality 1 

SERMON II. 

Invitations 13 

SERMON III. 

Obstacles 25 

SERMON IV. 

The Soul . . . 35 

SERMON V. 

The Divine in Man 44 

SERMON VI, 

Christ 54 

SERMON VII. 

The Master 65 

SERMON VIII. 

Christ's Manner 76 

SERMON IX. 

The Twelve Thrones 90 

SERMON X. 

Doing 103 

SERMON XI. 

Effect of Doing 116 



VI CONTENTS. 

SERMON XII. 

PAGE 

Introspection 125 

SERMON XIII. 

Anodynes . . . . . . . . . . 134 

SERMON XIV. 

Vows . . . . , . . . .143 

SERMON XV. 

Strength in Weakness . . . . ... 151 

SERMON XVI. 

Life . . . . " . . . . ' . . . 162 

SERMON XVII. 
The Anchor . . ...... . .171 

SERMON XVIII. 
Rejoice Always . . . . . . . . 181 

SERMON XIX. 

Two Sides to Death . . . . .... 191 

SERMON XX. 

Memory in Heaven . . . . \ " . < .200 



WORDS OF A FRIEND 



SERMON I. 

THE REALITY. 

" It is not a vain thing, it is your life." — Deut. xxxii. 47. 

How is religion possible in man ? 

Let us reflect carefully upon that question. If 
we would build up a religious life we wish to know 
what we are to build upon. In erecting a house 
we begin at the foundation, and first of all make 
that sure. What in man's nature is the founda- 
tion of religion ? Has it no basis there ? Or has 
it a legitimate and authentic support? 

We have all thought of these questions. Let us 
think of them again. And as we can have no love 
for a captious spirit, and no interest in reaching 
narrow and mean conclusions, let us keep an open 
and generous mind to welcome the truth. 

One fact meets us in the outset. Of all beings 

upon the earth, so far as we know, man alone has 

a susceptibility of religion. The animals which 

come nearest to him in intelligence discover no 

tokens of a conception of their Creator, nor of any 
l 



2 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



sense of duty or accountableness. The idea im- 
plied in the word worship, man alone compre- 
hends, and expresses by times, places, and acts of 
devotion. 

We mark another fact. Man in all parts of the 
world, and in all ages of history, has shown this 
susceptibility. Who needs any verification of this 
statement ? Its general truth is patent on the 
surface of all the records of man ; so that the old 
biographer, Plutarch, said, " If you look over the 
world you will find cities without walls, and tribes 
without arts, but nowhere a nation without wor- 
ship." 

There must be something in our nature that lays 
the foundation for religion ; just as any other uni- 
versal susceptibility must have its foundation there. 
Can we tell what that something is ? 

We all have heard of the answers which some 
•have given. It is not strange there should be men 
who love unsound speculation, and fanciful para- 
dox, as well on this subject as on many others. 
JSTeither is it strange that there should be other 
tmen who may have an interest in unsettling the 
foundations of belief, and sneering at all human 
virtue as a mere name, or at best a dream. Their 
views, if not frequently circulated in books, are 
more or less, in all communities, repeated from 
mouth to mouth, forming an unwritten literature 
of skepticism, to which, probably, no one is alto- 
gether a stranger. 



SERMON I. 



3 



Oftentimes familiar objects, a rock, or a post, if 
seen in the dim shades of night, will loom up in 
gigantic size, and assume a threatening attitude. 
They shrink into their harmless insignificance when 
we look at them by daylight. 

It has been said that all religion is superstition. 
But what is superstition ? Why should mankind 
in general have superstition ? On what capacity 
of our nature is superstition grafted ? The horse, 
the elephant, is not known to have a superstition. 
Even in man we see it is not a healthy product of 
culture and science. It is a perversion of a faculty 
that is denied a sound training, and hence shoots 
out in this baneful growth. Accordingly, super- 
stition is what Burke so justly termed it, the re- 
ligion of untutored minds ; and the proof is found 
in the fact that true religion has been the greatest 
exterminator of superstition, while times of spirit- 
ual ignorance and epochs of unbelief have always 
been most fruitful of vagaries and monstrosities. 

It has been said, again, that religion is the 
product of man's timidity. But why should man's 
fears have gathered themselves so universally to 
this channel, and run in this direction, if there be 
not some trend in his nature, some fountain of a 
predisposition, far up in the primitive facts of his 
being, from which this current so surely flows? 
What is that predisposition ? Do we not cheat 
ourselves by a mere paralogism if we say that 
man's timidity is the cause why he is timid on this 



4 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



subject of religion ? The point is, why do his fears 
universally take this direction ? 

It has been said, further, that the priest made 
religion. But who made the priest ? We are 
looking for that element in our nature of which 
the priest is the expression, the element which 
created the priest, and without which the priest 
could no more exist than could a musician among 
a people who had no perception of the harmony of 
sounds. 

It has been said, once more, that man's vanity 
gives birth to religion. Puffed up w T ith some 
bloated idea of his importance in the universe, 
man's pride is flattered by fancying himself noticed 
by superior beings, and his self-esteem suggests to 
him that he is to live beyond the grave. But are 
self-esteem and religion cognate and harmonious 
ideas ? Does growth in pride have any tendency 
to produce increased faith in God ? Do not the 
terms of this question bring to view r one of the 
strongest antagonisms of our nature, an exagger- 
ated egoism annihilating everything but self, while 
the perfection of religion is seen in the destruction 
of the roots of vanity and pride ? 

Now these answers to objections, if not needed 
to blow away this chaff, may help us to conceive 
of the true point involved in the inquiry before us, 
and lead each of us to approach it with his own 
careful thought. This is the best help which one 
can give to another, — to help him to think for 



SERMON I. 



5 



himself. And especially on this subject of relig- 
ion, overlaid so much by loose thoughts, and ill- 
considered words, and traditional misconceptions, 
of what immense importance it is to take it home 
for an earnest survey by our own minds. 

When now I come to give you the analysis of 
this subject which best satisfies me, and to state 
what I believe to be the true foundation of religion 
in the nature of man, let me first of all say a word 
about the difficulties which beset this whole in- 
quiry. The question does not relate to a matter 
of sense, which we can see and touch like the 
foundation-stones of a house. We are in the re- 
gion of ideas, — that upper region of conviction, 
faith, hope, which is ours as reasonable beings, 
and to which it is the chief glory of our nature 
that we can ascend. 

The subject summons us to a judicial exercise 
of our intellect, conscience, and heart. The an- 
swer we may reach is not likely to flash conviction 
upon us, like the solution of a mathematical prob- 
lem. It will be enough if it shall seem more and 
more reasonable and satisfying, the more we reflect 
upon it in our best hours. 

Let me premise one thing more. The analysis 
I am about to present may not be such as others 
have stated, nor such as you would state yourself. 
But of what consequence is this ? Examinations 
leading to varying results do not invalidate the 
reality of the object examined. Beside the general 



6 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



anticipation of different conclusions, arising from 
the diversity of sides on which we approach this 
great subject, there is the further difficulty of 
defining some of the most familiar emotions of the 
heart. We never make sufficient allowance for 
this. 

A man tells us of his new religious feeling, of 
the wonderful joy that thrills his soul, of the peace 
passing all understanding that has taken possession 
of his heart ; and because, when we question him 
closely about the matter, he seems to express him- 
self vaguely, fails to give us any clear ideas, and 
appears to have none himself, we are apt to con- 
clude that he is bewildered and deluded. 

A simple lesson in metaphysics should rebuke 
us. If the religious man should question us about 
some of our most natural and undoubted feelings, 
the tables might be turned against us. For ex- 
ample, he hears us speak of the sublimity of the 
ocean. Suppose he should interrogate us about 
this feeling of sublimity, and ask us to define it, 
and tell what it is like, that he may have a correct 
idea of it, and be able to see whether it be a mere 
whim, or a real feeling founded in the nature of 
man. 

Could we answer these questions to his satisfac- 
tion ? Could he not confound, perplex, and baf- 
fle us, just as easily as some play this poor game 
with the man who feels the emotions of religion ? 

The truth is, many of our most common and 



SERMON I. 



7 



best authenticated feelings are altogether incapa- 
ble of definition, and at best we can only describe 
the objects which awaken them, or the circum- 
stances under which they are felt. Take for in- 
stance our love of beauty. What is beauty ? By 
what faculties do we enjoy it ? What are its 
elements ? What is its true theory, and what its 
foundation in the nature of man ? 

Who can answer these questions ? Who does 
not know that hardly any two writers have an- 
swered them alike ? But who does not see that 
this difficulty of definition, and this diversity of 
analysis, do not in the least impair our confidence 
in the reality of the love of beauty, as a veritable 
and authentic exercise of our nature ? 

There are some advantages in an attempt to 
analyze this subject of religion, even if the analy- 
sis should be inexact. Besides showing that this 
manifestation of our nature labors under no more 
obscurity than belongs to other spheres of our ex- 
perience, it may help to form the conviction, of 
unspeakable importance to our soul, that religion 
is not a mere outside growth, a fungus, a parasite, 
a tradition, a custom, but has its ever-living root 
in the nature of man. 

If now we inquire for the elements of religion in 
man's soul, do we not find there these four ideas : — 

1. The first is the idea of God ; the simplest, 
the most intelligible, yet at the same time the 
loftiest and sublimest thought that ever entered 



8 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



man's mind, but which will enter there as surely 
as he is a man. 

2. The second is the idea of our dependence 
upon God, that He has the control of our destiny, 
that we are in his hands, subject to his power. 

3. The third is the idea of a right which He 
has to prescribe the manner of our life, with the 
corresponding duty on our side of living agreeably 
to his mind. 

4. And the fourth is the idea of the possibility 
that death may not put an end to these relations 
to Him, but may make them more clearly seen 
and felt. 

What Moses added to these primitive relig- 
ious conceptions constitutes the Hebrew Religion. 
What Christ added to them constitutes the Chris- 
tian Religion. But these lie back of all outward 
revelation, are an interior and universal revela- 
tion, and enter into the essential nature of man. 

They seem to be as truly a part of himself as 
his capacity to count numbers, or to enjoy what 
is beautiful and sublime. In the universality with 
which they are received, in the spontaneity with 
which they are apprehended, in the absolute cer- 
tainty that they will occur to every reflecting mind, 
in the impossibility wholly to eradicate them, 
though we may wish and try to do it, in these 
facts we may see proof that these four conceptions 
constitute a part of the vital and indestructible sub- 
stance of the soul. 



SERMON I. 



9 



Old classic history tells us that when the artist, 
Phidias, made his famous shield of Minerva, he 
engraved upon it his own image so deeply that no 
one could erase it without destroying the shield 
itself. We may say of these Four Ideas that they 
are so deeply engraved on the very make of the 
soul that they cannot be obliterated but by the 
destruction of the soul itself. 

We may have heard it doubted whether a man, 
shut out from infancy from all intercourse with 
his fellow-beings, would have the ideas here named. 
I think we have but little interest to know what 
the result of such an experiment would be. After 
all it would not prove anything. Such a man 
might not have any idea of truth, justice, right ; 
but it would not follow that these do not belong 
to us as men. Every faculty is subject to condi- 
tions of development, and will not grow without 
some favoring circumstances, no more than a grain 
of wheat can germinate on a bare rock. 

But I am intent now upon setting forth the 
reality of these primitive religious conceptions, and 
the reality of the emotions and duties to which 
they legitimately lead. 

This is no place for metaphysical argument. 
Learned books have been written upon each of the 
points under notice, by men who have devoted 
their life-time to devout contemplation and thought. 
It is not necessary that you should read them. 
The process may be much more short and simple, 
and not the less trustworthy. 



10 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Look into your own heart. Deal justly and 
truly with yourself. Do you doubt that you have 
these elemental ideas ? Do you not know that 
you have them ? Do you not feel certain that 
such conceptions belong to you because you are a 
human being, that it is the make of your mind to 
receive them, as truly as it is the make of your 
lungs to receive the air, or the make of your eye 
to receive the light ; and that you have no more 
reason to suspect you have been mocked and de- 
luded in the former case than in the two latter ? 

When therefore you yield yourself to their 
influence, you do it because such is the make of 
your nature. When you think of yourself as 
under the protection of a Being greater and wiser 
than all, you do it because such is your nature. 
When you respond to the duty of conforming your 
life, so far as you can, to the wise and benignant 
rules which He has made known, you do it be- 
cause such is your nature. 

It is your nature. Let me repeat these words. 
Religion is not something artificial and superin- 
duced. It is a product of your nature. Its exer- 
cises of love, joy, gratitude, trust, are all sound 
and healthy exercises, — just as much when cher- 
ished towards a divine Benefactor and Friend, as 
when cherished towards an earthly benefactor and 
friend. 

And will it do to call the sure and solid results 
of such a course by any other name than a reality ? 



SERMON I. 



11 



If these religious emotions give you some of the 
sweetest hours of your life, is not that happiness a 
reality ? If religion proves to be a friendly guide 
to your nature, keeps its lower passions in check, 
and brings out the higher capacities of your soul, 
is not the power that thus blesses you a reality ? 
If religion prompts you to duties which you are 
prone to put off, and gives you heart and courage 
to perform them, is not this help a reality ? 

I am a young person, one may say, and like 
most young persons am perhaps too fond of 
thoughtless pleasures ; and if religion makes me 
watchful, considerate, and saves me from those 
perils where so many have found their ruin, is not 
that power which holds me up a reality ? 

I am a man in business, another may say, and 
my mind is jaded from morning till night, year 
after year, by my thousand cares, and I feel my 
soul to be shut up and darkened, as if the walls 
of a prison were pressing closer and closer around 
me. If now I find a power in religion to break 
this thraldom, and to open my heart to all pure 
and generous pleasures, will it do to say that this 
is not a reality ? 

I look forward to the changes in my lot and 
in my friends that may come upon me in this 
changing world ; is not my serene confidence and 
trust a reality ? 

I must take my turn to lie there where we must 
all lie — on a sick and dying bed ; what is it that 



12 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



gives me peace and hope, takes the sting away, 
and makes death swallowed up of life, what is this 
but a reality ? 

I repeat it, finally, a reality. I do not know by 
what other name I can call it. Do you call the 
solid earth a reality ? Do you call your physical 
body a reality ? Do you call the property you 
have labored for and have treasured up a reality ? 
Only a few years will pass away before all these 
shall be to you as shadows and mists of the morn- 
ing, while religion will seem not merely a reality 
but the only reality. It is not a vain thing, it is 
your life. 



SERMON IL 

INVITATIONS. 

" My heart and my flesh crieth out for the liying God." — Psalms 
lxsxiy. 2. 

If religion has its foundation in certain concep- 
tions which have been wrought into the framework 
of our nature, one result will be that every man 
will, at times, be conscious of some inward prompt- 
ings inviting him to this subject. 

No doubt we can recall times when we have 
been unusually sensitive on this point. Religion 
had a fresh interest, a new and strange power, and 
we felt called to give it our affections and our life. 
These emotions may have been very brief and fit- 
ful. But we know the facts of our internal ex- 
perience. We have had such invitations. Let us 
reflect upon them, that we may see their charac- 
ter, and the use we are to make of them. 

It may be you have thought these things are too 
personal, too sacred, to be spoken of in the hearing 
of your nearest friend ; and you may shrink from 
communion with them here. 

I can well understand that feeling. Reserve 
does not always imply indifference. On this point 



14 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



we are sometimes tempted to harsh judgments. 
Such a vast amount of the thought and work of 
the world is given to this life alone, that we may 
feel like doubting whether men in general have 
any faith in the soul, or earnest concern for its 
future well being. 

But we must remember that it is only the 
worldly side of every man's life which we see. 
Beneath that mask of apparent unconcern which 
he seems to wear so easily and so defiantly, his life, 
we may be sure, has another side which we do not 
see. Moments of solemn reflection when voices 
from a higher world plead with him, and he can- 
not help yielding them some attention, and they 
give an unwonted thoughtfulness to his brow, and 
strange, deep moving emotions to his heart — there 
is no man living who has not had such moments, 
though they may be known, beyond himself, to 
Him only who sees the heart. 

We do not enough consider how many things 
may deter him from ever speaking of them, and 
may make him prefer to conceal them beneath an 
external insensibility. Consciousness of inability 
to express what he feels, perhaps some self-re- 
proach that he has neglected the suggestions of his 
better moments so long, fear that he may not meet 
entire sympathy from others, dread of their mis- 
conception, or pity, or ridicule, — all these causes 
may prevent him from manifesting an interest 
which in the deepest places of his heart he may 
have. 



SERMON II. 



15 



We talk about hypocrites who profess more than 
they feel ; but let us remember that there are 
hypocrites also in the opposite sense who feel 
more than they profess. At any rate, let us not 
be deceived by the outside shows of the world. 
Who can doubt that there is a reference to spirit- 
ual interests which is far more sincere, tender, and 
frequent than we are prone to suspect ? 

Possibly there may be another cause which may 
prevent you from approaching this subject in a frank 
and open mood. In describing the invitations to 
religion which you have felt, you may think there 
is something of presumption in my attempt. You 
may ask how I can pretend to know your heart, 
and by what kind of divination I expect to enter 
the citadel of your inmost thoughts ? 

In reply, I may say there is a divination open 
alike to all, and requiring but little skill to use it. 
The key is found in the essential identity of human 
hearts. In respect to every great subject that kin- 
dles emotion, similar impressions are made upon 
all. Standing on the shore of the ocean, beneath 
the cloudless stars, before a wonderful painting or 
statue, in the presence of a mighty display of 
power, or a rare scene of beauty, we utter at once 
any real feeling we have, assured it will find a 
kindred emotion in him who stands near us, and 
that the quick response will be, " So I feel my- 
self." Here is the foundation of friendship, soci- 
ety, eloquence, poetry, and art. 



16 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Thus in all departments of emotion the human 
heart is one ; and it is one on that subject which 
is sublimer than the ocean, and higher than the 
stars, and which fills the mind in its reflective mo- 
ments with a wonder and an awe which nothing 
else can call forth. What I have felt on this 
subject in all natural and just states of mind, 
David and Isaiah felt three thousand years ago, 
and Paul and John felt, and countless others in 
every age since, and in every land. 

And you have felt it too. Even those emotions 
which perhaps we are apt to regard as most pecul- 
iar to ourselves, our idiosyncrasies, did we know 
all the facts of others' experience, we might see 
that they knew all these too, — the same combina- 
tions of light and shade, of hope and fear, of truth 
and error, varying as our outward conditions vary, 
but ever leaving, when these conditions are alike, 
the same impressions upon the soul, as a star will 
picture itself alike in ten thousand mirrors. 

Brothers in the reception of a spark of God's own 
nature, brothers in a common consciousness of sin, 
brothers in the offers made to us of redeeming 
grace through Christ, brothers in the hope of the 
great Hereafter, we are brothers also in the emo- 
tions, warnings, invitations, which all these com- 
mon conditions suggest. In the deep things of my 
heart I find the ready key to the deep things of 
your heart. Let us commune upon these things 
as brothers, that we may be helpers of each others' 



SERMON II. 



17 



Opening, then, with tenderness and reverence 
one little window that looks into your heart, may 
I presume to describe, in the form of a supposed 
autobiography, some of the sacred emotions you 
have felt. Would not a memoir of your religious 
experience, if fully written by yourself, contain 
some such words as the following ? — 

I do not remember the time when my mind 
first received the idea of God. It was probably 
suggested by some word from a parent, teacher, 
or friend, far back earlier in my childhood than 
my memory extends ; but I can well recall many 
of the feelings with which this great thought used 
to fill my young heart. I remember that often- 
times when I lay on my bed at night, or when 
in my chamber I read some verses in the Bible 
and would pause to reflect upon what they meant, 
there were strange emotions of wonder and awe 
which took possession of my soul. I could not 
but think what a great and good Being God must 
be, to make the sun, the stars, the trees, the flow- 
ers, the great, wide world, and all it contains ; to 
make me, my parents, and friends, and to give me 
my home, and so many pleasures of my life. 
, Thus the Good Spirit was, even at that early 
period, moving upon my soul. Perhaps I was 
then more open to good impressions than I have 
ever been since. * When I have looked back upon 

w T hat I was in my childhood, it seems a remem- 
2 



18 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



brance of something more unspotted, more trust- 
ing and believing, more willing to be led upward, 
than I have ever found in myself since ; and the 
fact suggests how strikingly our nature, as we see 
it in its first and least corrupt state, is fitted to re- 
ligion, how readily it takes in these great thoughts 
of God, of duty, of Christ, and heaven. 

Childhood, without imputing to it the graces 
of an angel, childhood, with all its imperfections 
:and deep-seated biases, is at least not infidel. It 
believes, it feels, in its own way and according to 
its measure it adores. Such is the harmony be- 
tween the primitive ideas of religion and the na- 
ture of man in its least corrupt state. The fact 
that they are fitted to each other proves the vital 
reality of religion ; and L is not this the fact re- 
ferred to when Jesus said we must receive the 
kingdom of God " as a little child ? " 

So felt I in my childhood. And then when I 
grew up, this sense of awe in the presence of re- 
ligious ideas, though occurring less frequently, and 
with diminished intensity, still has come back to 
me on many well-remembered occasions of my life. 
I will now try to describe some of them, and to 
give a brief statement of my feelings at each of 
these times. 

I remember once — it must have been just be- 
fore I reached mature life — an intimate friend, 
the companion of my studies and sports, sickened 
and died. I think I shall never forget my feelings 



SERMON II. 



19 



when I stood at the open grave. It was not 
chiefly fear that took possession of me then, though 
there was something full of dread in the departure 
of a bright, joyous spirit, and in the mystery of 
death. Still I remember that the feeling which 
pressed strongest upon my young heart was, that 
through the opening made by that ascending spirit, 
I saw something higher, more enduring, more re- 
splendent, than anything which this world pre- 
sented, something which seemed to turn all sick- 
ness, separation, and death into so many steps 
of my progress upward, if only I could have the 
unspeakable good which seemed offered to my 
soul. 

It was one of the marked impressions of my 
life. It was akin in its effect to the awe and seri- 
ousness of still earlier days. It left its blessing of 
thoughtfulness and tenderness for many weeks ; 
and though after a while it was worn away, I feel 
it was one of those invitations to a better life 
which are sent at times to all. 

I may open to you another experience of my 
heart. It was no unusual event which occasioned 
it. Good health, bright spirits, a clear mind, a 
quiet hour, a disposition to meditate, were among 
the favoring circumstances ; but there may have 
been a higher influence than all these then moving 
my soul. I could tell you the year and the day ; 
for I was in a mood which compelled me to write 
down some solemn resolutions, and they are among 



20 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



my private papers stilL It was on a Sunday 
evening. The day had been a calm and holy 
one, and its lessons had come with unwonted 
sweetness to my heart. I sat musing at my open 
window. A scene of beauty and peace was spread 
out before my eye, and the setting sun was pour- 
ing its flood of golden light upon earth and cloud 
— the smile and blessing of departing day. 

How can I tell you of the wondrous peace 
which seemed to flow into my soul ? It came 
from the thought of the goodness of God, follow- 
ing me through my life, and spreading out before 
me all that unsurpassed magnificence and glory. 
And when I remembered how I was living a 
poor, ungrateful life, so much a stranger to Him 
who had blessed and was blessing me, and so 
much unfitted for that higher world of which all 
that beauty was no just emblem, may I make the 
confession of the tears I then shed, of the prayers 
I then breathed, of the resolutions I then formed ? 
That hour, too, was a voice inviting me upward. 
Would that it had been more faithfully heeded 
and obeyed ! 

I remember another time marked by a like 
deep spiritual experience ; but I have never before 
named it even to my nearest friend. It was occa- 
sioned by an event which often brings relief to 
the homes of fond affection, though here also I 
cannot but feel that some higher power was exert- 
ing a divine influence over me. The light and 



SERMON II. 



21 



joy of our house had been smitten down by a 
sickness nigh unto death. For days and nights 
had we gathered with anxious looks around that 
bed, watching every changing sign, amid the 
flickering alternations of hope and fear. 

Who has not felt the agony of suspense that is 
sometimes crowded into a few such hours; the 
thick-coming thoughts, which will press with a 
mountain-load upon the heart ; the appalling dark- 
ness which encompasses with closer and closer 
folds ? 

But now when that darkness was suddenly 
dispersed, and that load lifted off, and my friend 
was given back to me with a new lease of life, and 
as a fresh treasure to my heart, how did that 
heart go up to Him who had held the issue in his 
hand, and had vouchsafed to me that blessing ? I 
am speaking of what thousands have felt in like 
circumstances, and may unbosom myself with free- 
dom, and tell you what a reality seemed that God 
who was the Giver of this recovery, and how amid 
my tears of joy I vowed to offer all myself to Him, 
as a life-long expression of my gratitude. 

But the short autobiography which I proposed 
to write must here close. These few sketches 
are enough, however, to show that this is just such 
an autobiography as every reflecting man, in the 
review of his life, may make. Only I have not 
named a hundredth part of the invitations to a 



22 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



religious life which are furnished in man's nature, 
and in the circumstances of his earthly lot. 

What have been your thoughts when, on a bed 
of sickness, you have reflected upon the lessons of 
your weakness and mortality ? What have been 
your thoughts when, with recovered strength and 
new health coursing in your veins, you have gone 
forth for the first time from your sick chamber, 
joyful to greet anew this fair universe, on which 
your mortal eyes might never have rested again ? 
What have been your thoughts when ties, formed 
as you hoped for life, have been severed, and that 
path, in which you have found a helper and a 
friend, you are now doomed to tread alone ? 
What have been your thoughts as you pass the 
solemn boundary of the years ; — the past, with 
all its record of opportunities and deeds closed up 
for judgment ; the future, leading, it may be, to 
the last year you shall ever see on earth ? 

The calls and promptings of our common nature, 
amid circumstances of trial and duty in which we 
are all placed, — where is the man who has never 
felt them, as where is the man who may not be 
blessed by them, if only he will use them aright ? 

What is that right use of them ? 

Let me suggest it in the directness and freedom 
of a friend. 

1. Look upon these invitations w T ith sacred rev- 
erence. They are holy things. The choicest in- 
fluences, the most precious opportunities of your 



SERMON II. 



23 



whole life, may gather around those points. They 
are the instinctive yearnings of the heart, " feeling 
after if haply it may find " its Creator, Upholder, 
and Guide, though indeed " He is not far from 
any one of us." They are the tides of human 
affection, responsive to an influence from heaven, 
just as the bosom of the ocean obeys a mysterious 
attraction from above. They are like silken fila- 
ments, cast by the ministry of angels around your 
soul, that it may be drawn to spiritual things. Do 
not rudely rend them away. 

2. Perhaps they may bear this further resem- 
blance to angels' visits, that they are " far be- 
tween," coming to you only with diminishing 
frequency and power. If so, you can put yourself 
in an attitude to receive them. All our higher 
enjoyments, like those from poetry, music, art, 
sentiment, are subject to certain conditions. We 
must be in harmonious frames of body, mind, and 
mood, to receive them. So is it here. There are 
trains of thought, companions, books, places and 
hours of retirement, expressions of praise and 
prayer, which have a peculiar power over us, 
and through which we may receive these divine 
breathings. If they are like the wind, and we 
know not whence they come nor whither they go, 
we can at least open the windows of our soul, and 
keep them open, and lowly ask for these refresh- 
ing airs of heaven. 

3. And then when we have received them, who 



24 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



needs be told what we are to do ? In such sol- 
emn hours, who does not see conscience point to 
some duty omitted, to some sin indulged, to some 
service that waits the action of our will. Could 
the secret history of all persons be known, with 
how many might it be seen that the hours here 
referred to constitute the turning-points of their 
lives ? The career of a saint's immortal blessed- 
ness, the path of a sinner's enduring woe, traced 
back to their earliest years, may at that point 
meet and cross, where they both had voices cry- 
ing out within them, voices which one heeded and 
the other disobeyed. 

4. I will only add, that under the influence of 
these invitations a religious life seems not only 
practicable, but I may almost say easy. At other 
times it hardly seems possible. There is a tide in 
the affairs of men, and now is the favoring current 
in the greatest concern of our life. A responsi- 
bility rests on these moments, such perhaps as 
may not rest on weeks and months of our ordinary 
experience. When our heart and our flesh cry 
out for the living God, to be careless then may be 
to be hardened forever. 



SERMON III. 



OBSTACLES. 

" The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 

Matt. xxvi. 41. 

If in an hour of thoughtful self-communion, 
there are whispering voices that call us to a holier 
life, and we feel like saying, " I will arise and go 
to my Father," some stiffened habit, some indulged 
inclination may the next hour struggle for the 
mastery, and make us aware that the path of a 
religious life is not easy. There are obstacles to 
be overcome ; and we will here look at them, to 
see what they are, and to consider why we meet 
them. 

I enter at once upon this subject by asking you 
to reflect for one moment upon the general intrac- 
tableness of our nature. 

I speak not of our religious nature only, but of 
our intellectual nature also, and indeed of the bent 
to be given to our will in any direction whatever. 
It is, describing it generally, a rigid, stubborn na- 
ture, not easily moulded and shaped. 

Let us look upon this now simply as a fact. Do 
not perplex yourself about its cause. Here wise 
and good men differ ; some believing that this 



26 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



feature is a part of the foreordained constitution of 
man's discipline ; while others hold that it was 
superinduced by some dreadful violence through 
the first experience of sin. The inquiry may be 
worth following up at a proper time, but not now. 
At present we are to fix our attention solely upon 
the fact. 

It is impossible to overstate how much depends 
upon a clear and adequate comprehension of it. 
All just conception of the greatness of the work of 
religious culture must come from a right view here. 
All courage which is not daunted by the first ex- 
perience of difficulty, all faith which does not 
waver by the first encounter with doubt and per- 
plexity, all considerations to show the necessity of 
watchfulness and perseverance, must be drawn 
from this source. 

The traveller prepares himself according to his 
journey. In a hard and rugged path he w r ill give 
up in despair if he anticipated only a holiday 
excursion ; but might have pressed through all 
troubles had he foreseen them, and braced up his 
mind to meet them. 

No one can have failed to notice how much our 
nature early chafes under discipline, and is in- 
stinctively a rebel to authority. It is so through- 
out childhood, and remains so till a second nature 
of habit be induced. Accordingly the most suc- 
cessful government over the voung is that which 
maintains its influence imperceptibly, the chains 



SERMON III. 



27 



of whose power are either gilded, or kept out of 
sight. 

The instinct to resist direction often rans through 
everything. It is seen in the school-boy's disin- 
clination to study, in the young lad's impatience 
at his first confinement to work, in his disposition 
to overleap the limits of order and method in the 
arrangements of his time, and in the routine of do- 
mestic life. Even his dearest plays, if they w r ere 
commanded, would instantly lose their charm. If 
we should undertake to force him to sin, that 
instinct might- show itself then, he preferring a 
course of virtue merely to have his own way. 

Thus we ought not to regard this propensity as 
a bias to sin, though it is frequently so represented. 
Perhaps we ought to have more respect to what 
may have for its office to assert and bring out in- 
dividuality. 

But beside this reluctance to direction, there is 
the immense labor of discipline. We can conceive 
that God might have made our natures so plastic 
that they would at once be responsive to our will ; 
so that the moment we resolved, for example, that 
we would have a strong memory, we should pos- 
sess it ; the moment we desired to communicate 
our ideas, language intelligible to all should flow 
from our lips ; the harmonies we felt in our souls 
should pour themselves forth at once on instru- 
ments of music ; conceptions of divine beauty 
should stamp themselves upon the canvas or mar- 



28 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



ble at the first attempt of our hands; ideas of 
graceful manners should mould at once all the 
motions of our bodies ; and in short, in the whole 
compass of man's attainments there should be no 
long, tedious, struggling, lame, and halting process 
between desire and realization. 

The bare conception of such a constitution of 
our nature may lead us to see more justly, by way 
of contrast, what that nature is ; and the difficulty 
referred to so much necessitates self-discipline that 
it deserves to be illustrated more at length. 

We might have a lively idea of* it if, supposing 
we had never been trained to use any speech, we 
undertook to express our emotions to others. 
What an immense achievement this of speech is ! 
We are hardly conscious of it because we learn 
its use so gradually when we are young, though 
we are then some dozen or fifteen years about it 
before we have anything beyond a mere parrot-like 
imitation of sounds. We get a sense of the amount 
of labor required when we undertake to acquire a 
new language. We must give two or three years 
to it, and years of much hard work. What a vast 
number of little things we have to attend to, — 
nouns, verbs, adjectives, cases, moods, tenses, — 
what a draft upon our memory, patience, industry, 
and all because our nature interposes such obsta- 
cles in this line of advancement. 

You would become a proficient in music. Its 
heavenly harmonies are within you, but you want 



SERMON III. 



29 



to bring them out. You must labor years to do it, 
with a minute care to a thousand little details, to 
which you must bring a sturdy and steady resolve, 
that will hold out in patience, and will take fresh 
courage from repeated failures. 

You would express on the canvas some of the 
conceptions of beauty which have smitten your 
soul ; and ten years' close study and practice will 
not enable you to master all the difficulties to be 
overcome in perfecting a surface not larger than a 
dime. 

You desire to acquire ease and gracefulness of 
manners, and for this purpose you place yourself 
under the care of teachers, and seek the best 
models in society ; but the more you attend to this 
point the more you are impressed by the obstinacy 
with which former gestures and habits adhere to 
you, and perhaps you can never conform yourself 
outwardly to your idea. 

You make it a study to acquire strength of in- 
tellect, clearness of apprehension, fairness of judg- 
ment, a sagacious breadth of thought, enriched 
with learning and experience ; and you find that 
all this is only the slow growth of years, that in 
fact nothing less than a long life perfects it, so that 
a man's days are ended just as he gets really fitted 
to live. 

If these illustrations make us see that our nature 
is moulded only by time and labor, let us mark the 
fact that some of the difficulties in the way of a 



30 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



religious life are in strict analogy with all this. 
And while every other avenue of man's advance- 
ment has - — to use the imagery of the " Pilgrim's 
Progress " — its " hill of difficulty," and its " rock 
of danger," and its " slough of Despond," and its 
"giant Despair," and its "burden " of heavy toil, 
how can we expect exemption in the highest work 
put into man's hands, the sublimest art of his life, 
the culture of that part of his nature which makes 
him only a little lower than the angels ? 

An early resistance to direction, and an obsti- 
nate immobility to culture — are these the only 
difficulties in the way of a religious life ? Is there 
no obstacle down deeper than we have yet gone ? 
Jesus said in the text, the flesh is weak ; is the 
spirit always willing to do what we know to be 
right? Is there no foe lurking amid the first 
springs of our motives ? Can we forget the words 
of the Apostle, The good that I would I do not, 
the evil which I would not that I do ; the sin that 
divelleth in me; warring against the law of my 
mind ? 

Who has ever seriously set about a religious life 
without finding a deep meaning in these words, 
something giving an overpowering influence to 
what is present to the senses, gilding the lures of 
pleasure, flattering the love of indulgence, plead- 
ing for every darling desire and petted habit, disin- 
clining to self-denial and self-sacrifice, and allying 
itself to every weak side of the heart ? 



SERMON III. 



31 



Perhaps you remember the lines in which a 
quaint old poet shows how all our long list of de- 
fenses are at the mercy of one little internal foe. 
He says : — 

" Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round ! 
Parents first season us ; then schoolmasters 
Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound 
To rules of reason, holy messengers, 

" Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, 
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, 
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, 
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, 

" Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, 
The sound of glory ringing in our ears, 
Without our shame; within our consciences, 
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. 

" Yet all these fences and their whole array, 
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away." 1 

Some have believed that the sinful desire which 
easily besets us is at times darted into our hearts 
through the wiles of Satan. Others have held 
that it comes from a nature tainted and corrupted 
by the sin of Adam. But is the demand for 
continual struggle less imperative, is the necessity 
for watchfulness and prayer less stringent, if we 
believe that it is through the needed discipline 
of human faith and virtue ? I think not less but 
far greater ; while as a proposition this last view 

1 George Herbert. 



32 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



seems to me to be a thousand-fold more reasonable 
and more encouraging. 

But this brings us to our other question, Why- 
do we meet obstacles to a religious life ? 

If it be not given to man to discern the final 
cause, it is something for us to see that the case 
presses with no more difficulty here than in other 
things where we do not allow it to perplex us. 
Why is not man born a matured being, enjoying 
from the first the full perfection of his nature ? In 
other words, Why are we born men ? Why not 
angels, why not gods ? 

It is something, once more, for us to remember 
that our condition, whatever it may be, is, after 
all, God's Primary School for human virtue, the 
school in which, as He judged, it is best that man's 
trial should begin. It requires, therefore, no great 
humility to believe that on the whole it must be a 
good school ; and quite different from the Devil's 
school, for which it is sometimes taken. 

As to the fitness of this school for the culture 
of the religious life, how can any man pass judg- 
ment who has not seriously tried it ? We should 
think it an amazing presumption for one to decide 
questions relating to music, painting, language, 
mental science, who had never given any attention 
to these subjects. Have we ever heard of a man 
who has said, " I have bestowed as much thought 
and effort to a religious life as other men have 
given to learn a language, or acquire an art, and 



SERMON III. 



83 



I have had no success and no reward ? " Does any 
one believe that such a case can possibly occur ? 
Great as the obstacles in our way may be, does any 
man doubt that they will yield if we give only one 
half the time, patience, self-control, and vigorous 
discipline, which are squandered on inferior pur- 
suits ? 

It is a great deal more to consider that, at any 
rate, amid all the obstructions both to will and to 
do, the measure required of us will be that we do 
what we can. What a rule of warning as well as 
of encouragement! 

It is another great thought that the infinite 
beauty and worth of spiritual excellence may jus- 
tify all the labors and struggles, the falterings and 
perils, by which it is achieved, just as the richness 
of the fruit justifies all the long and slow processes, 
the dews and the rains, the winds and the storms, 
amid which it is matured. 

Once more, it is a further encouraging reflection 
that our present encounter with difficulties may 
have the most important bearing upon all our 
future progress, a bearing which only in the other 
world we may fully comprehend. If we shall 
then see that these difficulties stand connected with 
all just possession of ourselves, and that they were 
the needed teachers of watchfulness, patience, hu- 
mility, prayer, self-discipline, and inward energy, 
it may be that the glorified spirit will see few 
3 



34 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



things for which it will more bless its divine Gov- 
ernor and Guide. 

And finally, it is, I suppose, for all these reasons 
that the sacred writers give us repeatedly those 
remarkable texts, which show that while they rec- 
ognized the fact that the religious life was a scene 
of struggle, they yet described it as a struggle 
that is spanned by the bow of hope. There is a 
ring both of warning and of courage in their 
words : " Take to yourselves the whole armor of 
God. ,, " Endure hardness as a good soldier of 
Jesus Christ." " God is faithful who will not suf- 
fer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but 
will with the temptation make a w T ay to escape, 
that ye may be able to bear it." " Behold the 
husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the 
earth, and hath long patience for it until he 
receive the early and the latter rain." " Be ye 
also patient, for in due time ye shall reap if ye 
faint not." " Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as 
ye know that vour labor is not in vain in the 
Lord." 



SERMON IV. 



THE SOUL. 

" What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose 
his own soul ? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? " 
Matthew xvi. 26. 

The institutions and habits of thought of the 
times before Christ regarded men chiefly in the 
mass. Their worth was estimated by a computa- 
tion applied to them gregariously, as capable of 
bearing so many arms, or furnishing so many ser- 
vile attendants in the retinue of the great. Now 
and then there might be an emperor, a general, a 
philosopher of sufficient importance to be counted 
as an integer ; but most men were fractions so 
small that only when a large number were united 
were they counted at all. 

With a dim faith in any existence hereafter, 
how could there be a higher idea of man than 
this ? Where all thought is confined exclusively 
to the present scene alone, a thousand men seem 
of no more consequence than so many tenants of 
the mole-hill, or so many insects sporting in the 
warmth of a summer's sun. 

But as soon as men came to have any assured 



36 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



belief in a life beyond the grave, a life which will 
be of infinite duration, and may yield a priceless 
worth to each believing heart, they perceived that 
there are higher interests than those which concern 
men in the mass. A future mysterious destiny 
attached significance and importance to each in- 
dividual ; and the startling truth was announced, 
that even the w T hole outward world was not a 
measure of the worth of the soul. 

When we speak of the worth of the soul, per- 
haps there is, with those who hear this language, 
an incredulous feeling arising from the question, 
Why do not souls generally show some signs of 
their worth now ? If the soul of the beggar has 
an infinite value, how happens it that this value 
has reference only to a future life, where we can- 
not now measure it, or realize it ? Why is not a 
little bit of this value apparent here upon earth, 
enough to keep him out of rags, enough to give 
some hint of his future greatness, enough to make 
him an interesting and hopeful being, and to 
awaken in our hearts some emotions of affection 
and respect ?* 

Instead of this, as one may say, it seems as if 
the present system of the universe was utterly 
careless and wasteful of human souls, and treated 
them as things of absolutely no worth at all. There 
are at this moment three hundred millions of hu- 
man beings living in a savage state, hardly one 
step above that of the brutes ; and if each one of 



SERMON IV. 



37 



them has a priceless soul, why for ages have they 
lived and died like the most worthless things on 
the face of the earth ? 

What a revelation is made by a walk through 
some overcrowded and filthy street in a great 
city ! As we look down into the cellars, and up 
into the garrets, and find them filled with new- 
born human beings, more than one half of whom 
will be swept away by want, foul air, the cholera, 
the plague, while the most of those who grow up 
will wear out a few years in the lowest forms 
of existence, — truly, if all these have souls for 
each of which a world must not be exchanged, 
why do they vegetate only like so many pestifer- 
ous weeds in the great field of humanity ? 

Thoughts like these may have perplexed us, 
and it may be well to look at them. 

So far as the perplexity arises from the great 
number that are born into the world, we must not 
overlook the evident plan of the Divine Being to 
give the blessing of existence to as many as He 
can. In looking through God's works we find 
them everywhere teeming with life. There are 
creatures so infinitely small that to them the leaf 
of a tree is a continent, and a drop of water is an 
ocean ; and every leaf and every drop is filled 
with them ; nor is there marble so hard, nor fire 
so hot, nor frost so cold, nor spot in the whole 
universe so deserted, but it has myriads of living 
witnesses of the skill and beneficence of the Cre- 
ator. 



88 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



If we suppose, then, that God intended to mul- 
tiply human beings also, and to fill the world with 
them wherever they can exist, even in crowded 
cities and barbarian wilds, what of it ? How can 
it be a good argument to show that God has not 
given me a priceless soul, because He has given it 
to so many ? 

But the point does not press so much upon the 
fact of the great number who are born, as upon 
the circumstances of neglect amid which they 
seem to be thrown into the world ; it being incon- 
ceivable, as is supposed, that creatures of an infi- 
nite worth should begin their existence amid such 
wretchedness and want. 

On this point we must not let the imagination 
play fantastic tricks with the judgment. No one 
has an absolute standard of outward condition 
according to which he may say who are, and who 
are not well situated, by their birth, for the pur- 
pose of a moral trial. How often we see great 
and good men spring up from the very lowest 
conditions of life, and bad men disgrace what 
seems outwardly the most favored lot. Our 
fathers, fifteen or twenty generations ago, were 
born amid exposures and wants, such as the 
poorest do not now endure ; and fifteen or twenty 
generations hereafter, our descendants would not 
have their children begin life amid the evils bv 

ZD %j 

which the children of the best families among us 
are now surrounded. 



SERMON IV. 



39 



Thus our ideas on this subject are the result of 
our position and education ; and what is still more 
important to observe is, that our imaginations are 
imposed upon by quite petty and insignificant 
things. 

.We might exclaim, what a neglected condition 
for the birth of a child who first saw the light of 
life in a manger, by the side of cattle, was cradled 
on the hay, covered with the skin of a beast, fed 
from a shell, or at best from a wooden spoon, crept 
on the uncarpeted floor, perhaps had not even a 
floor to keep him from the ground, and when he 
grew up had no place where to lay his head ! 
Conceive an immortal soul ushered into the world 
in such a condition as that ! 

There was an immortal soul, of an infinite 
worth, once so born into the world ; and before 
w r e talk about the neglect of Providence in such 
cases, it may be well to weigh our words. 

Of the outward circumstances of human life, 
which are infinitely various, we are apt to think 
that those alone are decent and tolerable to which 
we are wedded. But let us look beneath these 
varying and accidental allotments, and consider 
for one moment what an infant child is in itself. 
Perhaps we shall see some intimation that Provi- 
dence has been thoughtful of it, as a thing of ten- 
der and precious worth, if we look to its new-made 
frame, put together with an affluence of wisdom 
and care which no mortal hand in the whole world 



40 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



can begin to equal ; if we look to its instincts pro- 
viding for its preservation and pleasure in more 
ways than we can number ; if we look to the germs 
of wonderful capacities which will soon enable it 
to comprehend something of this infinite universe 
of God ; if we look to the possibility of its becom- 
ing a temple of God's Spirit, and a resplendent 
image of his glory. 

We must look to all this, and take into account 
all that this means and represents, before we talk 
about the neglect of Providence for one of the 
least of these little ones. 

But our incredulity may reach one step further. 
If we may not say that any souls born into the 
world are neglected by Providence, if much of 
their seeming neglect arises from our conventional 
way of looking at life, and nearly all their suffer- 
ing springs from man's ignorance and folly, still, 
we may ask, how is it that newly created souls 
have not one sign of their alleged worth ? We 

© © 

feel that affection for the infant which all animals 
instinctively feel for their young ; but what solitary 
token do we see that here is an immortal soul, 
made to live when the world shall perish, and of 
whose worth the world itself is not a measure ? 
Nothing gives us the least hint of such a stupen- 
dous truth ; and is it not too great a tax upon 
one's faith to ask him to believe it ? 

Now I reply, that we might ask a like question 
in relation to facts which we cannot deny. Some 



SERMON IV. 



41 



years ago a little infant was born, as weak, frail, 
helpless, as all other infants, who soon grew up to 
be a man whom the world knew as Dante ; but 
in that puny child no eye saw one solitary token 
of the mighty genius to which the world would 
one day do homage ; and it might then have 
seemed too great a tax upon human credulity to 
ask one to believe it. 

Dante, Milton, Shakespeare,— we have the same 
nature that they had. Probably their chief dis- 
tinction above the mass of mankind is that their 
gifts bloomed sooner. A little training in a future 
life may lift all pure souls up to a point far above 
that where they stood when on earth. 

We see no signs in the little child of the price- 
less worth of the soul ? What if we do not ? May 
not the fact be owing to the dimness of our vision, 
to its lack of spiritual discernment ? Over the 
cradle in the lowest hovel of want, if angels bend, 
may not they discern the sure gleams of an intelli- 
gence, an awe, a wonder, a love, which only an 
eternity can develop, while they adore that won- 
derful Providence which, from a beginning so 
lowly, raises up a spirit to be resplendent with a 
divine brightness and worth forever ? 

For these reasons, who does not see that this 
skepticism as to the worth of the soul is earthly, 
and sensual, and shallow ? As the first motive to 
all religious watchfulness and effort, as the spring 
to every high hope and noble aim, as something to 



42 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



buoy us up above the transitoriness and littleness 
of this passing world, as something to give wings 
to our faith even in the hour of death, what do we 
need so much as a deeper conviction of the worth 
of the soul ? Made in the image of God, quench- 
less as God's own nature, soon to open itself with 
wondrous power, when freed from the fetters of 
the flesh, that soul is through eternity to be the 
vehicle of our consciousness, our memory, our 
hopes, our inconceivable felicity, or our unspeak- 
able woe. 

The culture of that soul — what other work has 
ever been put into our hands so great as this? 
Who of us can feel that for his part he can dispense 
with methods and helps of its training to which 
good men in all ages have found it needful and 
blessed to resort, — an earnest and concentrated 
attention to this subject, a pure and holy life, 
habits of thoughtful reading, meditation, and 
prayer, a faithful and devout attendance upon the 
public services of religion ? If these last fall 
below our idea of what they ought to be, we know 
that a like damage is done to any lofty idea by 
attempting to incarnate it, such as the administra- 
tion of justice by judges and juries, or the govern- 
ment of a nation by cabinets and politicians. But 
who would therefore abandon everything to neg- 
lect, and not try to reach the best result he can ? 

And therefore let us here give earnest and 
solemn heed. We watch after the bodj^s health 
and vigor ; shall we do less for the soul ? 



SERMON IV. 



43 



Guard it with jealous honor. Keep it pure 
from the stains of sin. Feel that no present 
pleasure and no worldly wealth can be an equiva- 
lent for the canker of lasting shame and remorse ; 
and that you are rich, though with nothing else 
you can call your own, rich beyond all the gold 
of the world, so long as you have the treasure of a 
soul to bear through eternity an approving witness 
to you. 



SERMON V. 



THE DIVINE IN MAN. 

" Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." 
1 John i. 3. 

Are not these very bold words ? I should think 
they were bold words if only great men had been 
named ; if one should say, my fellowship is with 
Plato and Milton. How much more bold when 
applied to Almighty God, and to the Lord J esus 
Christ ! It was indeed a great thing for the 
Apostle to say, our fellowship is with the Father, 
and with his Son. 

And yet there must be something in man which 
makes such a fellowship possible. The distance 
between some beings is unbridged and impassable. 
What fellowship has the oyster with the bird? 
What fellowship has the horse with an angel ? 
The distance between man and God is not so great. 
There is a divine side to humanity. 

We all know there is another side too. If man 
has aspirations that run up to Christ and God, he 
has likewise lusts and passions that run doivn to 
beasts and devils. History has a great deal to 
say of these lower connections ; our experience of 



SERMON V. 



45 



life forces upon us some knowledge of them ; we 
may find their traces, if we will search our hearts, 
in our own bosom sins. 

But for the present let us look to the other side 
of humanity, its higher side, its divine side, open- 
ing towards God, connecting with God, making 
the fact of a communication, a tie, a fellowship, 
yes, and even as the Scripture expresses it, a one- 
ness with Him, possible. 

I know that some regard all views like these 
here alluded to as mere sentimentalism, fit for 
poetry, or a subject for a young girl's composition. 
They deem nothing certain but what the hard 
experience of life teaches, what is beaten into 
them by the strifes, and selfishness, and sins of the 
world. 

But who of us would not say, not only that this 
is a one-sided aspect of the case, and the worst side 
of it, but that it is also the most deceitful side of it. 
In the noise and dust and struggle of the w T orld, it 
is only when we get out into clear sunshine and 
quiet air that we can see our real position ; and 
so, on the subject before us, till we get above the 
smoke and clamor of temporary passions and inter- 
ests, into the bright and serene air of everlasting 
truths and principles, we cannot know who we 
are, and what relations we sustain. 

If it be asked what are the evidences of this 
divine side of humanity, might I not appeal to the 
consciousness which every man has that he was 



46 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



made for something better than the business of this 
world, however necessary and useful that business 
may be. He cannot help feeling that this does not 
fill out his ideal, nor exhaust his capacity, nor sat- 
isfy his longings. In his best moments he is con- 
scious that his worldly employments are to his 
powers what playthings are to children — some- 
thing to occupy the present time, while a nature 
far larger than they lies dimly behind them, and 
will soon rise above them. It is that aspiring na- 
ture which has fellowship with God. 

In this freedom of my will — free, while instinct 
and necessity impel all other creatures, free to take 
its own way, and to be in a humble but real sense 
a cause, like God Himself, — is there not something 
divine in this ? 

In my perception of the Right, in my love of 
the Good, have I not the tokens of the image of 
God ? The Right and the Good are the very 
essence of God's being ; and so far as I have them 
I am admitted into God's family, and am a par- 
taker of his very nature. 

Look to the fact that man can conceive of the 
Perfect. An imperfect being himself, surrounded 
by imperfect objects, in the midst of an imperfect 
creation, he has the idea of something perfect 
stamped on his soul. That he is capable of having 
a perception of that idea, that he can reach up to 
it, get hold of it, and take it into his soul — here is 
a tie that connects man with the All-perfect One, 
and reveals the divine side of humanity. 



SERMON I. 



47 



The same remark may be made of our concep- 
tion of the Infinite. What a wonder that a finite 
being, surrounded with finite objects, should have 
in his soul the conception of something infinite ! 
Whence came it ? Who put it there ? What is 
its meaning ? Who can foresee all the growth of 
that seed ? What an intimation and pledge of 
something divine in man ! 

When now, from looking to the soul itself, we 
look to its history in the world, when we look to 
the life of man, ignorant, benighted, and wicked as 
he has been, do we see no proofs that there is a 
divine side to humanity? 

There have been sainted and holy men in the 
world, men who the longer they have lived have 
put off more and more the imperfections of hu- 
manity, and parting from the last coil of mortality 
they seem to have gone to the closest fellowship 
with God. There have been such men. Here is 
one fact. Who can deny it, or who can fathom all 
its significance ? 

The ancients raised great and good men to the 
honors of divinity. They deified them. Their 
apotheosis — what was it but a dictate of the in- 
stinct of humanity that in its best development it 
grows upward to be like God ? 

Look next to the meaning of worship. Consider 
what a large space worship has held in all human 
history. It has everywhere been one of man's 
leading wants and occupations. I know how some 



48 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



have accounted for this, that it has been fear which 
has led man to pray, and that worship is but an- 
other name for cowardice. But is worship laid 
aside when man gets above his fears ? Have rev- 
erence, and love, and gratitude, and hope, and 
praise, and trust, no adoring voice ? Have not 
these, everywhere, and in all ages, sung their 
sweet anthems ? If some have cowed before God 
as slaves, have not others stood up in his presence, 
rejoicing and happy as sons ? 

What is the meaning of the fact that man prays 
at all if it be not the recognition of a communion, 
a fellowship, a kindred nature ? Temples and 
churches, the world over, are proofs of the divine 
side of humanity ; and the fortresses and armies of 
the world, its battle-fields, its victories, its proud 
monuments, the mausoleums of Rome and Greece, 
and the pyramids of Egypt, all do not tell so much 
of the divine in man — it has been well said, — as 
the spire of a village church. 

Moreover, what but the divine side of his hu- 
manity has lifted man up to any of those great 
deeds which thrill our hearts when we name them; 
made men feel that their fortunes and their lives 
were not to be thought of if they could do some- 
thing for their country and their race ; that toil, 
suffering, death, are noble when given freely for 
others, and that there is a precicusness of reward 
for such sacrifices which fills out the meaning of 
the words, that he who so loses his life gains it ? 



SERMON V. 



49 



What but the divine side of humanity has in- 
spired all great poems, made marble instinct with 
life, painted scenes of undying beauty, reared min- 
sters and cathedrals, and set to celestial melody 
the solemn Misereres ? 

What but the divine side of humanity has led 
thousands to take up and continue the Son of 
God's own work on earth, to feed the hungry, to 
visit the prisoner, to open the eyes of the blind, to 
break the rod of the oppressor, and to let the op- 
pressed go free ? 

What but the divine side of humanity has con- 
ceived of that better constitution of human society, 
that peace on earth and good-will among men, 
that reign of God, that kingdom of heaven, here 
in this present life, which all holy prophets have 
predicted, and which piety and faith everywhere 
believe will one day be realized ? 

All this is very well, it may be said, as far as it 
goes. But after all what does it prove ? This 
supposed divine element in human nature, — who 
sees it, who feels it? Only here and there a 
dreamer, a poet, an essayist, a sermonizer. It is 
easy to single out a few noble and splendid things 
which shed some lustre upon the whole race. But 
look to the mass of mankind, — what signs do they 
give of possessing this godlike humanity ? 

To which I answer, what if they give none ? In 

walking through your corn fields you do not gather 

the half-formed and diseased ears, though they 
4 



50 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



happen to be most abundant, as specimens of the 
nature of your grain. If you form some estimate 
of the average yield, you know that that repre- 
sents the growth only of this year, and is no meas- 
ure of the production of all coming time. The 
possibilities and tendencies of the grain you recog- 
nize in the perfected ears, and you study these as 
prophecies of the harvest of some future and better 
day. Why should we not be as just to our hu- 
manity ? 

Besides, who does not see how false is the im- 
plication that the mass of mankind show no con- 
sciousness of the divine element in their nature ? 
What names does all the world hold up to honor ? 
Is it the names of men who in their private life, or 
in their public career, have displayed the passions 
of beasts and devils ? Nero, Caligula, Judas, Bor- 
gia — have not the mass of mankind covered these 
names with infamy ? Have not examples of disin- 
terested and noble deeds been the world's praise, 
and the world's grateful and joyful heritage ? Is 
it not the tendency of all culture to give such ex- 
amples a purer and more transcendent homage ? 
How could this be but for some intuitive fellow- 
ship between the mass of mankind and these ex- 
alted deeds? 

It deserves also to be considered that our opin- 
ions of the character of the mass of mankind are 
shaped by ever varying ideal conceptions of what 
mankind ought to be ; so that these opinions are 



SERMON V. 



51 



not so much expressions of objective facts, as of 
our subjective ideas. Perhaps one reason why we 
so much praise a few examples of Greek and Ro- 
man virtue is that we feel obliged to measure them 
by something less than our Christian standard ; 
while to the old pagan world so good a condition 
of mankind as we now see in most Christian coun- 
tries would have been absolutely inconceivable. 
Thus even in our condemnation of the world we 
pay homage to the high ideal which Christianity 
has inspired ; and what is that ideal but a divine 
fore-feeling of an ever approaching reality ? 

Once more, it may be said that it is not Christian 
to speak of the supposed divine element in man, 
that all true piety takes the wholly opposite view, 
that instead of puffing man up by dwelling upon 
his godlike aspirations and capabilities, the aim of 
the gospel, as seen in its primitive teachers, is to 
humble man's pride, to make him think of his fail- 
ings and sins, that he may see that he is a ruined 
and wretched transgressor. 

This whole objection seems to me to be unsound 
in philosophy, and false in fact, and a misrepre- 
sentation of the course pursued by the first teach- 
ers of our religion. 

It is unsound in philosophy. If I inherit noth- 
ing but a ruined and sinful nature, I am not 
humbled by dwelling on that fact. Nd one can 
feel shame and repentance that he does not get 
above the limitations of his nature. He might as 



52 



WORDS OF A FRIEND.' 



well be mortified that he cannot run like the horse, 
or fly like the eagle. It is only by showing him 
that his nature is capable of better things, and that 
he falls below it, he abuses it, he dishonors it, that 
one can have a sense of humiliation, or can feel the 
real sting of sin. 

This objection is equally false in fact. It is the 
concurrent testimony of all church history, that 
the greatest spiritual pride and arrogance have 
been coexistent with the lowest views of human 
nature. Why should it not be so? The scorn 
and hate of our nature as something totally tainted 
and corrupted, and sending the mass of mankind 
to destruction, have given intensity to many of the 
fiercest passions, especially where men have felt 
that they were saved, and have been plucked as 
brands from the burning. Here are not the germs 
of an infinite tenderness and love ; w r e might as 
well expect figs from thistles. 

And, finally, this objection misrepresents the 
instructions of the primitive teachers of the gospel. 
Not as the sum of mean and degrading views of 
humanity did the Great Teacher say, " Be ye per- 
fect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
Not as the sum of such views did St. Paul say, in 
his address to the Athenians, " We are of the line- 
age of God 1 and again, " Know ye not that ye 
are the temple of God ; " and St. John say in the 
words of the text, " Our fellowship is with the 

1 Yevog tov Oeov. Acts xvii. 29. 



SERMON V. 



53 



Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." True, 
he here alluded to hearts purified and regenerated 
by the Holy Spirit ; but they were hearts that had 
elements in them which the Holy Spirit could in- 
spire and mould ; and this is the truth on which 
I have dwelt. 

And its word of exhortation is, reverence that 
nature which has been given you, — that image of 
God in which you were made. Feel that it is your 
own voluntary sin which taints it and corrupts it. 
Believe there is something in you worthy of all 
your struggles, and self-denials, and self-sacrifices 
— something which has the seed of a destiny 
greater than you can now conceive. By prayer 
and holy living guard those aspirations which come 
from God, and tend to God, and may make you 
one with God, and filled with all the fullness of the 
godhead bodily. 



SERMON VI, 



CHRIST. 

" What think ye of Christ ? " — Matthew xxii. 42. 

It cannot have escaped your notice that all our 
controversies about the person of Christ turn on 
points widely different from that in which, after all, 
we have the deepest interest. 

But it is no new thing for men, when they are 
disputing, and form parties, and get impassioned, 
to turn off to some side issue, and overlook the 
only point with which they have really any con- 
cern. The greater need is there to ask, What is 
the one question about Christ that has any prac- 
tical importance, and what is all theological clamor 
about ? 

Jesus Christ presented Himself as a messenger 
from God to men. This was his claim and his 
office. 

Now in the case of a messenger, the only ques- 
tion for us to consider is, was he appointed and 
commissioned to this work ? It was for God to se- 
lect whom He pleased. Suppose He thought best 
to send one who dwelt in heaven with Him, and 
in a mysterious union with his own person, his 



SERMON VI. 



55 



own Son, the image and brightness of his glory, 
and that He made him the messenger of reconcilia- 
tion and peace. What then ? Our concern is not 
with the question who he was, but is with the ques- 
tion, Was he selected, and appointed, and author- 
ized, so that in dealing with him it is the same as if 
we dealt with God, he having all God's power and 
authority behind him, to make his word and work 
sure to our souls ? 

Or suppose that God saw fit to select an ex- 
alted angel of heaven. What then ? Our concern 
is not with the question who this angel was, but is 
with the question, Was he chosen and empowered 
by God, so that in dealing with him it is the same 
as if we dealt with God, he having all God's 
power and authority behind him, to make his word 
and work sure to our souls ? 

Once more, suppose God took as his messenger 
a man, the man Christ Jesus, giving him the spirit 
without measure, and endowing him with all the 
wisdom and love and grace necessary for his work. 
What then ? Our concern is not with the question 
who this messenger was, but is with the question, 
Was he set apart and consecrated to this office, 
so that in dealing with him it is the same as if we 
dealt with God, he having all God's authority and 
power behind him, to make his word and work 
sure to our souls ? 

I have drawn out these three suppositions in 
order that we might see that we have nothing to 



56 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



do with the question, What was the person of 
Christ ? and that our interest in him lies in the 
other question, Was he an appointed and com 
missioned messenger from God ? 

Accordingly, who does not remember that the 
Gospels, from beginning to end, make this one 
point prominent above everything else, that Christ 
was sent by the Father ? " This is life eternal 
that they might know thee the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." " I proceeded 
forth and came from God ; neither came I of my- 
self, but He sent me." " The word which ve hear 
is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." " He 
that seeth me seeth Him that sent me." " I have 
not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent 
me, He gave me a commandment what I should 
say." " I must work the works of Him that sent 
me." " My meat is to do the will of Him that 
sent me." But were I to repeat all the passages 
where this language occurs I should have to quote 
a large portion of the Gospels. 

The same point is prominent in the sermons and 
the epistles of the primitive preachers of Chris- 
tianity. Throughout them all we find one pur- 
pose running, and that is to prove that God sent 
his Son into the world, that all might believe on 
him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent. 

" Sent ! " That is the refrain everywhere ; and 
that all these varied expressions bring to view the 
sole point of practical interest may be seen by a 



SERMON VI. 



57 



comparison. If the governments of England and 
the United States were mutually hostile, and a 
messenger should come from the former to the 
latter, when he presents himself to the authorities 
of this country, what is the question which they 
have first of all to settle ? It is whether he was 
appointed and commissioned. If parties should 
be formed on other issues, if some should say, a 
messenger should have royal blood in his veins, 
or be a member of the nobility at least, and con- 
tend that we cannot properly receive him until we 
know his age, and history, and exact rank in the 
peerage, and if in disputing on these points we get 
excited and angry, and call one another hard names, 
and all the while forget the message that had been 
sent, should we not be doing a very foolish thing ? 

I think so. And I think, also, that it would be 
a timely and sensible word if one should say, " You 
are contending about points with which you have 
nothing to do. It is for the English Government 
to appoint whom it may please as ambassador. 
His authority does not depend upon his rank but 
upon his commission. Let us see that he comes 
from his sovereign, and that is enough ; and then 
let us attend to the message he brings." 

Words corresponding to these, I think, would 
be equally sensible and timely if addressed to 
Christians. Of our disputes about the person of 
Christ, would that the only thing to be said might 
be that they are foolish. In a case of such great 



58 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



concernment our controversies seem impertinent 
and impious, and were they not so common, they 
might even be called insane. 

Some men may believe that Christ is God him- 
self — God taking a human form, God dying on 
the cross ; and may not be staggered by the suppo- 
sition that the everlasting and immutable God can 
die, nor at the idea of derivation which the word 
son carries with it, nor at the argument that the 
sent must be subordinate to the sender^ nor at the 
fact that if Christ had two natures, the human 
and the divine, as it was his highest nature that 
came down from heaven, so of that nature He says, 
" I proceeded forth and came from God, neither 
came I of myself but He sent me ; " thus showing 
that in his highest nature he was distinct from and 
obedient to God. None of these arguments, nor 
a hundred others just like them, may shake their 
faith in the absolute deity of Christ. But what 
of all that ? It is not what they believe about the 
metaphysics of Christ's nature that is the substan- 
tial thing of their faith ; but the other truth they 
hold to is the one thing needful, that Christ rep- 
resents God, He is the wisdom of God, and the 
power of God, unto salvation. 

Others may believe that Christ was some ex- 
alted angel, who lived before the foundation of the 
world, and was God's agent in creating the world, 
but who in the fullness of time took upon himself 
the form of a man, and submitted to death for our 



SERMON VI. 



59 



sakes ; and they may not be repelled from this 
view by being asked to consider upon what figura- 
tive language this whole hypothesis rests, nor by 
remembering that Christ could not have been 
tempted in all points as we are if he had the na- 
ture of an angel and was not touched with' a feel- 
ing of our infirmities, and that thus the efficacy 
of his example is destroyed. All these and like 
arguments may not shake their faith. But what 
of that ? How unimportant their metaphysical 
speculations compared with their belief that Christ 
represents God, and is the wisdom of God, and 
the power of God, unto salvation. 

And so still other men may hold that Christ's 
existence commenced when he was born of his 
mother, that in his birth and nature and growth 
he was human, that the one mediator between 
God and man is the man Christ Jesus. And it 
may not trouble their faith at all to be told that 
qualities are ascribed to Christ which can belong, 
it would seem, to no merely human being, while 
the whole Christian world has from the first ren- 
dered him a degree of reverence and homage 
wholly out of place and unaccountable were he 
only one of our brethren of the human race. All 
this and more may be no obstacle to their faith. 
But what then ? These speculations are nothing 
if they cling to the main thing, that Christ repre- 
sents God, and is the wisdom of God, and the 
power of God, unto salvation. 



60 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



There are few subjects on which a preacher, 
who means to be careful what he says, and to speak 
always with due reserve and modesty, may assume 
more confidence of utterance than on this before 
us. A true faith in Christ is faith in his divine 
commission. The language of the Scriptures, the 
analogies of the case, and the reason of things, 
all make this certain. And to this I may add that 
such has been the judgment of enlightened and 
candid men of all names. 

I may here quote the words of one of the most 
eminent prelates of the Church of England, Bishop 
Watson. In one of his charges to the clergy of 
his diocese, he says, — 

" What need is there that we should calumniate and 
detest one another, because we cannot agree in our 
notions concerning the person of Christ ? His authority 
as a teacher is the same whether you suppose him to 
have been the Eternal God, or a being inferior to Him, 
but commissioned by Him. We are under the same 
obligation to obey the precepts of the gospel, are in- 
cited to obedience by the same hopes, deterred from dis- 
obedience by the same fears, whether we believe Jesus 
of Nazareth to have been coeternal with the first source 
of all being, or to have been a man miraculously con- 
ceived, in whom all the fullness of the godhead dwelt 
bodily. All depends upon the appointment of God. 
And if, instead of the death of a super-angelic, an an- 
gelic, or of a human being, God had fixed on any other 
instrument as a medium of restoring man to immortal- 
ity, it would have been highly improper in us to have 



SERMON VL 



61 



quarreled with the means which his goodness had ap- 
pointed, merely because we could not see how they 
were fitted to attain the end." 

So said this distinguished ornament of the Eng- 
lish Church, and I could find similar statements 
from the representatives of nearly every sect in 
Christendom. 

" What think ye of Christ ? " Jesus himself 
asked that question ; and it may be said that he 
doubtless intended his disciples should think some- 
thing about him, for he proceeded to suggest in- 
quiries as if on purpose to lead them to clear and 
exalted conceptions of him ; and a sermon, it may 
be thought, with the aim I have here in view r , 
should hardly take its text from this conversation 
of our Lord. 

To all which I reply, that if we will take pains 
to note the subject of this conversation we shall 
see that it did not relate to speculations about the 
metaphysical person of Christ, but turned on his 
official authority, which was greater than that of 
David, because David himself called him Lord, 
and God said to Christ, " Sit thou on my right 
hand ; " and for this reason Christ was Lord to 
David, by God's appointment, and not by any con- 
sideration of his nature ; so that the text confirms 
the point of this discourse. 

" What think ye of Christ ? " It may be asked 
again, How can we help forming some opinion about 
his nature and person, who he was, and what he 



62 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



was ? To which I answer, this is doubtless a le- 
gitimate curiosity, and every man will have his 
own faith to himself. I have only contended that 
we should hold our speculations subordinate to the 
one central and vital truth, that Christ, whatever 
else he may have been, was divinely sent by the 
Father. 

'"What think ye of Christ?" The inquiry 
now may look to the question, How do we know 
that he was sent by the Father ? What is the 
evidence to prove that he was a messenger from 
heaven, a divinely-commissioned Saviour, a Teach- 
er, far more to us than the great philosophers and 
sages of the world ? 

Of course I cannot, at the end of this sermon, 
even glance at the testimony on this point. The 
most convincing and transforming evidence we 
may find in our own souls. Where is the other 
being to whom our whole moral nature bears such 
responsive witness ? Who has ever shown such 
sinlessness, such winning, spiritual beauty, such 
deep insight into the laws of the soul's inner life, 
such acquaintance with the moral principles by 
which, as we see, the world is governed, and dis- 
closures of the future which seem so confirmed by 
all our purest aspirations and hopes ? 

I shall say nothing of the other proofs often ad- 
duced to show the divine commission of the Son 
of God. Learned men build up their historical 
arguments, and theologians multiply their disquisi- 



SERMON VI. 



63 



tions upon the natural and supernatural. But is 
woman's affectionate and earnest trust, is the faith 
of the great majority of Christians, held by these 
ties ? They have a shorter and simpler confirma- 
tion. They say with the Apostle John, " He that 
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself." In our day the faith of Christendom is 
settling more and more upon proofs of the divin- 
ity of the Son of God, drawn from what he did 
to quicken human sympathies, to take off the bur- 
den of woe and sin, to encourage every pure aspi- 
ration and every blessed hope, and to lift up the 
enduring interests of mankind. Why should we 
look upon this gradual change of the poise of our 
faith with alarm ? 

Should a discovery in philology prove that all 
the reported miracles of the New Testament are 
ancient Hebrew ways of describing natural events, 
if it might overthrow some structures called 
" Books of Evidences," it might not shake the 
trust of a single soul that finds the bread of life 
that came down from heaven in the Sermon on the 
Mount and in the Parables, and believes, not be- 
cause of what others say, but because it has itself 
seen and known that this is indeed the Christ, 
the Saviour of the world. 

" What think ye of Christ ? " This question, 
finally, may mean what can Christ do for our 
souls ? In the directness and earnest affection of 
a friend let me beseech you to welcome him as 



64 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



one who brings truths higher than this world can 
give, and in comparison with which the wisdom of 
this world is foolishness. Welcome him as one 
who sheds light on the meaning and destiny of 
life, and lays a foundation for our pardon and 
peace, and lifts up mortal struggles and sufferings 
to be steps of our immortal advancement and glory. 
Welcome him as one on whom it pleased the 
Father to place your help, making him your de- 
liverer and redeemer, who has done all that needed 
to be done, so that you may be no more strangers 
and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, 
and of the household of God. 



" Oik 



SERMON VII. 

THE MASTER. 

{ One is your Master, even Christ." —Matthew xxiii. 8. 



A glance at a concordance of the Gospels 
shows how frequently this title, Master, was ap- 
plied to Christ. It was the most common name 
by which his disciples addressed him. " Ye call 
me Lord and Master, and ye say well, for so I 
am ; " and here in the text Jesus tells them to 
give that title to no one else. 

Let us reflect for a few moments upon the sub- 
ject which is thus presented to our thoughts, — 
Jesus the Master of Christians. 

And I am sure there is much to interest our 
sympathies and affections, if we will approach the 
thought in a right way, in the simple statement 
that we have a Master in Jesus Christ, One of 
the deep wants of the heart is the want of a 
guide, some one to look up to, to lean upon, to 
reverence and love. 

It is true no one likes the constraint of force 
and authority ; and we all know how early and 
how strongly the instinct of independence asserts 

5 



66 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



its claims. I do not refer to anything of that 
kind, but to a guiding influence which respects 
man's freedom, which is based on wisdom, gentle- 
ness, love ; which seeks to save man from errors, 
mistakes, sufferings, fearful and guilty woes ; 
which spreads out before him the facts of his 
nature and condition, his duty and destiny, and 
thus exerts its power only in the sphere of the 
reason, the conscience, the heart. Influence, not 
authority. 

This is the sense in which it is said that Jesus 
is the Master ; 1 and in this sense of the word, the 
human heart, I repeat, feels its need of a Master. 
It is never happier than when it has such a Mas- 
ter. Those were the happiest hours of childhood 
when we had a teacher who best filled the office 
of a gentle, faithful, and loving guide. Much of 
the joy of the filial relation springs from the con- 

1 In about twenty places in the Gospels this term is applied to 
Christ, either by Jesus himself or by his disciples. Almost 
without exception the word in Greek is AtScuneaAos, which means 
Teacher. Once Jesus calls himself Kadrjyr}Tr}s, that is, Guide, 
though even here the reading of the best approved manuscripts 
is Ai$d<TKa\os. We have an association of authority with the 
word Master, which, as we thus see, is foreign to the Gospel use 
of it. Probably the word Rabbi carried with it something of our 
modern sense of Master; and it may have been for this reason, 
that Jesus forbid its use, when he said, " Be not ye called Rabbi, 
for one is your KadriynrTjs ; " so that he would neither have his 
disciples assume or bestow that title. We infer that Judas was 
the only one of the Twelve who habitually called Christ Rabbi, 
as if he alone was incapable of appreciating the gentle and lov- 
ing influence which Jesus sought to exert. 



SERMON VII. 



67 



sciousness of being in the arms of a watchful and 
blessing care. The dictate to choose a friend 
wiser and better than ourselves, to be moulded and 
inspired by him, comes from the same deep want. 
And why is it that for so many ages millions of 
souls have looked up to Jesus, to listen to the gen- 
tle whisper of his voice, and to lean with loving 
trust on his gracious arm ? 

Let us not doubt what the explanation is. The 
human heart feels its need of a guide. There is 
an internal want placed in the soul by the same 
Divine hand which has supplied the external aid. 
Perhaps the most affecting passages in old pagan 
literature are those in which some of the great 
sages of antiquity expressed their longing for a 
teacher from heaven, and their conviction that 
one would some time be sent. The readiness with 
which men in all ages have listened to those falsely 
claiming to be inspired from above, shows how 
universal and irrepressible is the sense of a need 
of a guide. 

When, therefore, in Jesus we find one who fills 
our conceptions of what is perfect in wisdom, of 
what is spotless in virtue, of what is divine in pity- 
ing condescension, and infinite in goodness and 
love, if the heart will but speak out its own true 
and deep feeling it will say, " That is the Master 
for me. Dear Master Jesus, take me into the cir- 
cle of thy pupils. Let me at least touch the hem 
of thy garment. I am in doubt and darkness 



68 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



and danger, thou canst give light and peace. 
Thou didst in pity stoop to my need ; let me in 
faith lean on thy divine arm." 

So some feel like saying ; perhaps have said it 
in their hours of religious retirement. And they 
are happy to feel that they have a Master. The 
fact gives a new meaning to life. They are under 
a training. They are in a school. Gifts, tempta- 
tions, trials, have a significance to them beyond 
what these have to others. Such things are parts 
of a discipline. Life is no longer an unmeaning 
routine, a selfish scramble, a mere sunshine or 
cloudy day followed by an eternal night. Life is 
lifted up and ennobled. A mighty plan runs 
through it. The island of to-day is joined to the 
continent of eternity. Their thoughts, their aspi- 
rations, stretch out to a boundless expanse ; for 
the Master here present with his pupils in this first 
scene of their teaching, will soon take them to 
liigher instruction and improvement. 

The condition upon which this advancement is 
suspended may be stated in one word. It is obe- 
dience — willing, confiding, and affectionate obe- 
dience. But to do only what we like to do is not 
obedience. To do only what the world around us 
does is not obedience to Christ. To judge from 
the conduct of some, one might suppose that they 
were masters, and the requirements of Jesus must 
be accommodated to them. Duties which put 
upon them a disagreeable service must be inter- 



SERMON VII. 



09 



pre ted in a more welcome sense, and toned down 
to the standard of an easy and self-indulgent 
world. 

The poor, ignorant man, of whom history tells 
us, who, misinterpreting the figurative words of 
Jesus about taking up a daily cross, made literally 
a cross of a beam of wood, and bore it about from 
morning till night, till it had worn into his shoul- 
ders, and bowed him down to the dust, he at least 
took the attitude of obedience, and was willing to 
put up with self-denial, and to make cheerful self- 
sacrifice for his dear Master's sake ; and who 
knows but that at last he will be more honored as 
a true disciple of the Crucified One than many 
who may now smile at his ignorance, and have no 
fellowship with his humility and obedience ? 

Some seem to suppose that Jesus is not their 
Master, because they have not acknowledged him 
to be such. But who does not know that fre- 
quently important relations exist which we do not 
formally confess ? I am under obligations to my 
country from the fact of my birth, although I have 
never made a formal profession of my allegiance, 
nor taken a vow to observe its constitution and 
laws. I am under obligation to my parents from 
the fact of my birth, although I have never for- 
mally acknowledged the filial relation, nor prom- 
ised to fulfill its duties. In like manner I am 
under obligations to the Master, Christ, from the 
fact of my birth, although I may have never foi^ 



70 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



mally professed myself to be a Christian, nor prom- 
ised a Christian obedience. 

In all these cases my professing or not professing 
does not alter the essential relation of things. Duty 
is not to be put on or put off by a ceremony. The 
formal acknowledgment does not make the duty. 
That exists, whether we acknowlege it or not. 
Applying to your relation to your country and 
your family, this fact applies also to your relation 
to the Christian religion. Your birth under its 
light and hopes makes imperative your allegiance. 
One is your Master, even Christ, although you 
may never have said so, and never have had the 
thought enter your mind. 

If we all have only one Master, it follows that- 
we all alike are servants, or as Jesus, in the gentle 
sway he alone seeks, preferred to call it, we are all 
brethren ; at any rate are all equal. Here in the 
Gospel is the grandest lesson of equality which 
the world has ever received, the best practical ex- 
emplification of it which the world ever saw, as in 
all Christian ages it has been the most effectual 
teacher of equality that has ever lifted up its voice 
in its behalf. 

Was ever rebuke of spiritual domination more 
pointed than that given by Christ, when referring 
to the ' common subordination of rank, princes 
exercising authority over the people, and great 
rulers exercising authority over the princes, he 
adds the striking words, u It shall not be so 



t 

SERMON VII. 



71 



among you." He meant, " not in my plan ; for 
alas, it has been so in point of fact. Early did 
Christianity bow down before the governments of 
the world, and then it took the forms of the world, 
the ranks and offices of the world, the costume and 
taste of the world ; and hence came popes, and 
bishops, and councils, and priestly power. But all 
the pomp and shows of Church Establishments, 
their gorgeous robes and splendid ceremonies, the 
pride of rank and name which they engender, and 
the spiritual tyranny to which they lead, — can 
you conceive of anything more repugnant to the 
mind of Jesus ? 

When we review the history of the Church, we 
are at first filled with amazement as we mark how 
everything connected with Jesus has been per- 
verted to the service of a pride of place and thirst 
of power. Pontiffs rivaling the mightiest emper- 
ors have gloried in the name of " successor " of 
Him who had not where to lay his head. Through 
the longest line of sovereigns of which the world's 
history gives any record, they have called them- 
selves " servant of servants," after the lowly One 
of Nazareth. Cardinals reveling in pomp and 
luxury have coveted descent from the fishermen 
of Galilee. That lesson of self-forgetful condescen- 
sion, taught by the language of an act in the 
washing of the disciples' feet, has been travestied 
in one of the most gorgeous of papal ceremonies. 
Schemes of outrageous selfishness and lust have 



72 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



been baptized as dictates of the " Holy Spirit." 
The word " bishop," denoting originally the over- 
seer of a flock, has become a proud title of rank ; 
and the word " minister," meaning servant, has 
been appropriated by a caste claiming distinct priv- 
ileges and authority. 

Ah well, we recover ourselves when we ask, 
what is the explanation of all this ? For w r e here 
see the infallible proofs what a mighty Being was 
once known among men, who so much drew the 
whole world after him, that even the selfish and 
ambitious felt they could most distinguish them- 
selves only by some connection with him. This 
attraction to himself of those who have no spir- 
itual likeness with him, is the penalty of all great- 
ness. In the case of the most eminent men, this 
attraction is spent in a generation or two ; in the 
case of Jesus Christ, it has already lasted nearly 
two thousand years. 

His precepts disclaiming all authority, and seek- 
ing only the influence of love and goodness, have 
seemed almost impracticable in such a rude theatre 
as Christendom has hitherto presented. But Chris- 
tendom has all the while been growing up to them, 
and will get nearer to them by and by. Mean- 
while it is no doubt true that a rejection of all 
spiritual authority over one another exposes to 
confusion and disorder, accompanied perhaps by 
strange speculations, and startling opinions, and 
individual isolation, and inability for large affiliated 
action. 



SERMON VII. 



73 



But did not he who knew what was in man 
foresee all this ? If all the winds of doctrine are 
let loose in a tempest around our ears, will they 
not best blow themselves pure by giving them free 
range ? At any rate, is there anything worse than 
the close and poisoned air of spiritual oppression 
and slavery ? And, therefore, when we read in 
the Gospels these words, " One is your Master, 
even Christ," though we feel what a bitter com- 
ment upon them the whole history of the Church 
has been, let us be thankful these words are there 
— the banner words of freedom and equality, yet 
to shine out from the New Testament with a di- 
vine brightness and power, and to guarantee to the 
lowest disciple of Jesus, his right to have his own 
faith to himself before God. 

One is your Master, one alone, because the 
school, the flock, the body, is to be but one. By 
how many different names are they now known on 
earth — names of parties and sects, names of strife 
and passion, perhaps of scorn and hate. But let 
us believe that, after all, these differences are only 
external, just as on the surface of the earth we see 
wide varieties and conflicting powers, fire and 
water, hill and valley, plain and forest, while if we 
dig down anywhere but a few feet we strike upon 
beds of primitive granite that underlie them all. 
So there are primitive feelings, aspirations, hopes, 
longings, beliefs, — the granite of our human na- 
ture, underlying all pure hearts. They are one 



74 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



though they know it not. All confiding souls 
turn to that one Master, all believing ears are 
glad to hear his life-giving words, all trusting eyes 
look to him to give brightness and joy to the 
world. 

I have read a little story of the early days of 
the Church, which is here brought to my mind. 
It was in the fierce struggles of the Arian contro- 
versy, when armies believing in the omoousion were 
in deadly strife with other armies that believed in 
the omoiousion; and only that one syllable, mark- 
ing the supposed distinction in Christ between the 
same nature and a like nature as God's, divided 
them. In some lull of the carnage two soldiers 
strayed from the opposite camps to a brook near 
which they sat, and refreshed themselves with the 
cool water and with friendly talk. They conversed 
about Jesus Christ, his beautiful life, his sweet 
words, his triumphant death, his immortal prom- 
ises, his heavenly spirit, and their hearts were 
knit together. Suddenly the trumpet sounded, 
and soon these two stalwart men confronted each 
other with uplifted axe. But could they strike — 
they who had seen each the other's heart ? No. 
Their weapons fell at their side, they grasped 
hands, and owned that they were brothers, though 
the strange strifes of the world had brought them 
there in conflict. 

The deeper we go into the loving heart of Jesus, 
the more will our differences slough off. May he 



SERMON VI L 



75 



be the Master till we shall all become one with 
him even as he was one with the Father ; and we 
shall have the blessing of his words, " I call you 
not servants but friends ; for all mine are thine, 
and the glory which I had with the Father I will 
give to thee." 



SERMON VIII. 



Christ's manner. 

" The people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as 
one having authority, and not as the scribes." — Matthew vii. 28. 

The reported words of an absent person are but 
half a revelation of himself unless we know the 
manner with which they were uttered. For this 
reason the Gospels are but a semi-transcript of the 
mind of Christ, and only a dim reflex of the in- 
spiring power of his life. Several circumstances 
enter into the difficulty of adequately comprehend- 
ing him. 

In the first place the four historians give us no 
hint as to the words on which our Lord laid the 
chief stress. We all remember that when, in our 
school-days, we studied the rules of reading, we 
had examples of sentences that had several differ- 
ent meanings according to the position of the em- 
phatic word. How much more clearly might we 
have comprehended the mind of Christ, had we 
been told on what sentences, or parts of sentences, 
he laid the chief emphasis. 

But that same reserve which led the Evangelists 
to abstain from all description of our Lord's feat- 
ures, forbade any reference to his style of speak- 



SERMON VIII. 



77 



ing. We search in vain for such helping sentences 
as these, or their equivalents, " This sentence was 
marked with deepest earnestness," or, " This was 
pronounced with peculiar solemnity." We all 
feel that such comments would have been alien to 
the straightforward purpose of the writers. 

Accordingly we find nothing of the kind. The 
text is almost the only place where there is any 
allusion to his manner, and it is his manner that is 
here referred to, not so much the substance of 
what he said, as his way of saying it ; for he 
announced spiritual truths with an air that carried 
conviction with it, and it did not need the support 
of those endless quotations with which the scribes 
buttressed up their tottering dogmas. 

Another circumstance which increases the diffi- 
culty of rightly understanding our Lord's mean- 
ing is the abrupt, fragmentary style of address, 
which was then, and is still common in eastern 
countries. With us the transitions, the connect- 
ing ideas, the expressions of surprise, assent or 
dissent, praise or censure, are put into words. 
But it is the oriental fashion to express these by 
signs — a shake of the head, a shrug of the shoul- 
der, a wave of the hand. Travellers in the East 
at this day, when they see two persons walking 
and conversing together, observe that every few 
moments they stop and face each other, to get a 
fuller view of those gestures upon which depends 
a knowledge of what they mean to say. 



78 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Even after the province of gesture had been 
somewhat invaded by language, the old habit of 
noticing bodily signs is hinted at by the frequent 
translation of these signs into words. Thus every 
one remembers how the sacred writers love to paint 
the physical appearance of the speaker, as in the 
following expressions : He lifted up his eyes and 
said ; he opened his mouth and spake ; he stretched 
forth his hand ; they looked one upon another. Such 
descriptions are found more frequently in the Old 
Testament than in the New, where the fashion 
seems expiring, and is . retained chiefly in collo- 
quial phrases which throw but little light on any 
peculiarities of our Lord's manner. 

In Leonardo da Vinci's great fresco of the " Last 
Supper," you may remember how animated is the 
gesticulation. All the disciples are talking with 
their hands, and arms, and head ; in represent- 
ing which the artist was true to oriental habits, 
as undoubtedly our Lord himself was. Did we 
know exactly what his gestures were, what a help 
should we have in rightly appreciating the force 
of his words. 

A book has been published on " The Light shed 
on Classical Literature by a Knowledge of Ancient 
Gesture." No doubt a study of the same subject, 
applied to the Scriptures, might give a life-like 
meaning to many obscure passages. 

As we have not been told of Christ's emphasis 
and gesture, so also nothing is said of the spirit that 



SERMON VIII. 



'79 



rayed out from him. There is with every one. 
and especially with every marked character, a 
subtle and mysterious influence of personality, that 
constitutes the fascination of his presence, and the 
secret of his power. His consciousness, thought, 
feelings are revealed by a thousand incidental 
things, that give varied and indescribable shades 
of meaning with electric quickness and force. In 
the case of Jesus, how often a sudden glance of 
his eye, a peculiar tone of his voice, a sweet smile 
or a gathering shade, some felicitously chosen 
word, or some expressive silence, must have given 
a glimpse into the wonderful depth and intensity 
of his life, and created around him an atmosphere 
of inspiring and transforming power ? Yet not a 
word was written about all this. 

But while the Evangelists do not give us de- 
scriptions of our Lord's manner of speaking, they 
record a few facts incidentally, and therefore, all 
the more suggestive, which go to show that there 
was something very remarkable in that manner, 
something transcendently impressive^ — a manner 
full as marked as his matter, perhaps even more, 
arresting immediate notice, and producing instan- 
taneous conviction. 

Of course we should have expected this. As 
he came to reflect brightly among men the love 
of the Infinite Father, what an imperfect me- 
dium of reflection may words have been, compared 
with that divine tenderness that beamed from his 



80 * 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



eyes and gave its winning gentleness to the tones 
of his voice, compared with that interest in every 
human soul which had never before been conceived 
of by man, compared with that sublime dignity 
and awe inspired by his conscious union with God ? 
How must that manner and air have been one 
of the most natural and vital instruments of his 
power. 

Perhaps you have seen a young person, most 
likely a young woman, eighteen or twenty years 
of age, in whom a richly endowed intellectual and 
emotional nature was allied to one of those deli- 
cate organizations, which instantly revealed the 
play of every thought and feeling, so that the body 
hardly seemed a veil to the soul, which appeared 
to stand out visibly before you. The body was 
not a mask but a mirror. Such a remembrance 
may help us to conceive of one in whom divinity 
was not obscured but was " manifest in the flesh," 
so that the beholder at first glance saw the infinite 
depths of its wisdom and its love. 

Roman Catholic writers, perhaps under a bias 
in favor of the traditions of the Church, have more 
frequently referred to the winning grace and di- 
vine energy of our Lord's manner, than have 
Protestants, who have been under an opposite 
temptation to exaggerate the importance of a scrip- 
tural literalism and the printed word. But does 
it not seem that till we take that manner into ac- 
count we can hardly comprehend facts found in 



SERMON VIII. 81 

all parts of the Gospel records, why Jesus drew 
such multitudes around him, why the poor and 
neglected, the sorrow and sin-struck so hung upon 
his lips, why many at once left everything and fol- 
lowed him, why parables and discourses and apo- 
thegms were imprinted so ineffaceably upon their 
minds, why they felt their hearts burn within them 
as they talked by the way, why a mere look from, 
him should make Peter weep bitterly, or the bare 
sight of him should draw forth the exclamation 
from a pagan centurion, " Truly this was the Son 
of God." 

I am not intent upon saying the obyious thing 
that Jesus must have had an expression and em- 
phasis perfectly in keeping with his mission. Of 
course that is true, but my point goes much deeper 
than that. Till we form some adequate concep- 
tion of his manner, by reproducing him to our 
imagination, through a profound sympathy with 
his style of character, his words are shorn of their 
power, and are to his meaning only what skeleton 
bones are to the living body. It is not enough ta 
say that a mere reading of these words will fail 
to clothe them with life. Even no laborious study 
if confined to the letter will do this, nor will any 
intellectual imagination. Only that imagination 
can do it which is penetrated and inspired by a 
sympathy with his spirit and life. 

Some illustrations may place this in a stronger 
light ; and I take a few almost at random, only 

6 



■82 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



selecting such as involve no dogma, and where the 
necessity of some reference to our Lord's manner 
lies on the surface of the record. 

No reader of the Gospels can fail to see that 
necessity in the account there given of the arrest 
of Jesus. The story as recorded by St. John is 
in these few and simple words : " Now the betrayer 
having received a band of men and officers, came 
with lanterns and torches and weapons to the 
garden where Jesus was. And Jesus, knowing all 
things that should come upon him, went forth to 
meet them and said, Whom seek ye ? They an- 
swered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto 
them, I am he. As soon then as he had said unto 
them, I am he, they went backwards and fell to 
the ground." 

Now everybody feels that the whole life of this 
scene lies behind this verbal account, and is almost 
unsuggested by the language of the writer. Per- 
haps no language could reproduce it. Indeed, how 
can it be reproduced at all save by some ability 
on our part to conceive that divine self-possession, 
and fearlessness and majesty, before which those 
Roman soldiers trembled as guilty things sur- 
prised, so that they went backwards and fell to the 
ground. How evident that he only can compre- 
hend Jesus in this scene, who, by bearing some 
spiritual likeness to him, can clearly see our 
Lord's air and manner. 

By the same Evangelist we have the account of 



SERMON VIII. 



83 



our Lord's driving out from the Temple those who 
had desecrated it by traffic. You all remember 
the story. The scourge of small cords, used with 
reference to the sheep and oxen, is no intimation 
of physical force against the traffickers and money- 
changers ; for a resort to such a weapon against a 
crowd of people, on a market day, would make 
nothing but ridicule possible. 

The explanation lies in another quarter, — in 
the supremacy often gained over a multitude by a 
mind of lofty purpose, and determined look, and 
burning words ; so that when Jesus said to them, 
" Take these things hence ; make not my Father's 
house a house of merchandise," there was some- 
thing in that eye and voice which even those heart- 
steeled mercenaries were utterly unable to resist. 
That something who can comprehend but he who 
has in his own soul what is akin to the courage 
and omnipotence of right ? 

As an illustration of another aspect of our 
Lord's character, and another feature of his man- 
ner, we may refer to the story of his interview 
with the men who brought to him the adulterous 
woman. They thought that he might say some- 
thing contrary to the law of Moses, which required 
death by stoning ; and therefore they, guilty them- 
selves, came on the double errand to entrap him 
and insult the sinful. What was the meaning that 
shot from the eye of J^esus, and intoned itself in 
the well-known words of his reply ? 



84 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



I have seen in scores of church pictures in 
Europe, that different artists have expressed differ- 
ently the face of Jesus in this scene, some paint- 
ing it as exposing the subtle guile of these men, and 
others as scorning their hypocrisy. It may be 
there was something deeper than art can reach ; 
at any rate, we may well believe there was some- 
thing holier than is here supposed. Infinite pity 
for human frailty, expressed in gentle and weeping 
tones, such as angels might use over a sinner, — 
this may have disarmed their purpose, and flashed 
a sudden and awful light into the dark and fester- 
ing places of their hearts ; till, as we read, " con- 
victed in their consciences, they went out one by 
one." 

Perhaps you have heard the anecdote told of a 
distinguished divine, not many years since de- 
ceased, who was in conversation with one who 
thought the woes pronounced against the Scribes 
and Pharisees were not exactly in moral harmony 
with the character of Christ, and who quoted the 
text, " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how 
can ye escape the damnation of hell ? " 

Every one knows that there are infelicities in 
the translation of the passages referred to, and 
several expressions Sound more harshly in our 
English version than in the original. But the only 
reply made to the criticism was to read these sen- 
tences in something like the probable manner of 
Christ, in his tone of unspeakable tenderness and 



SERMON VIII. 



85 



pity. The objector yielded at once, asking, " Was 
that the way the Saviour spoke ? " To these two 
men what different language the same words, and 
only to the higher Christian consciousness was the 
true meaning and manner revealed. 

It is the less strange that men should now mis- 
take the emphasis with which Christ uttered par- 
ticular sentences, when we consider that his own 
immediate disciples in some instances mistook it. 
If it seem improbable that we who did not see our 
Lord's manner, should in any case understand it 
better than his personal followers who did see it, 
an example to be now adduced may almost demon- 
strate that this is the fact. 

The case to which I refer is found when Jesus 
stood near the close of his public ministry, and he 
w r as thinking what a change might come over his 
disciples after he had been withdrawn from them. 
His special care of them would cease, and it might 
be that to a degree at least, they would return to 
their former mode of life. He would guard them 
against that. He asked, " When I sent you with- 
out purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any- 
thing ? And they said, Nothing. Then said he 
unto them," — and here by his manner intimating 
that this might be the language of their future 
actions, — " But now, he that hath a purse let him 
take it, and likewise his scrip ; and he that hath 
no sword let him sell his garment and buy one ; " 
expressing, as I believe, not what he would have 



86 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



them do, but what he feared they might do ; just as 
a parent may say to his son coming of age, ^ Hith- 
erto I have taken care of you and saved you from 
harm ; but now take your own course, feel the 
pressure of difficulties, fall into trials ; " — a man- 
ner often adopted, and in other cases too by Christ, 
of expressing a person's future actions as if in the 
language of present command, — a look of the eye, 
a tone of the voice, stamping most vividly w T hat 
we deprecate, and would have him shun. • 

And yet some of our Lord's hearers, still cling- 
ing to the notion of a temporal kingdom, caught 
at once at these words, buy a sword, and said, 
" Lord, here are two swords." And Jesus replied, 
"It is enough," — intimating, no doubt, by his 
manner, that if any of them were thinking of such 
a thing as his arming his followers, two swords 
were quite enough for them all. 

As some of the first disciples supposed that 
Christ enjoined carrying deadly weapons, so there 
have been readers and preachers of the Gospel, 
even at the present day, who so misunderstand his 
words. We find in those words another and 
higher meaning, one not so utterly repugnant to 
all his other precepts, but in harmony with his 
gentle spirit of peace, when a profounder Chris- 
tian consciousness sees his probable emphasis and 
manner. 

The incident called the Feeding of the Five 
Thousand gives us a hint of something wonderfully 



SERMON VIII. 



87 



divine in our Lord's manner. I do not regard the 
miracle as consisting in a supernatural supply of 
food, but in a power over the sensibilities and will 
of the multitude. It appears that the disciples 
had five loaves and two fishes. How much food 
did all the others have ? Perhaps a greater sup- 
ply for every twelve mouths ; so that an equaliza- 
tion might give enough to the needy from the 
stores of the over-supplied. It was something, as 
I conceive, in our Lord's manner that wrought 
this miracle of equalization, something in his divine 
disinterestedness and generosity, in his godlike 
benignity and grace, that touched all hearts, and 
melted them into one. 

It is doubtful whether the scene occurred twice ; 
but it made a profound impression, as it may still, 
if we look at it not as an inconceivable prodigy, 
but a moral miracle, subduing selfishness, opening 
the fountains of generosity, by a godlike beauty 
and grace. 

Once more, the need of some reference to our 
Lord's manner is seen in the interpretation of his 
parables. Most of the mistakes here made arise 
from overlooking the one salient point which he 
designed to illustrate, and which, no doubt, he 
clearly indicated by his voice, or eye, or hand. 
Each parable must be studied as a group of statu- 
ary. An artist bends over such a group absorbed in 
profound meditation. He examines the history of 
the scene represented, the moment of time selected, 



88 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



the thought to which everything was plastic, and 
when he is in possession of the motive of the group, 
the marble palpitates with life. These parables 
are but dead and cold stone till we conceive the 
true manner of their utterance, and then the 
group is instinct with spirit and life. 

But I must not any longer dwell on these 
hints. They tell us what divine light and power 
once flooded the homes and hill-sides of Judea, 
just as a few scattered boulders tell the geologist of 
the mighty river that once filled the whole valley, 
and bore down everything before it. These Gos- 
pels are like a grand picture drawn by an inspired 
hand, but of which we have only the outlines. 
The filling up and the coloring of the picture are 
the work of a Christian imagination, reproducing 
Christ himself in his emphasis and looks. 

The divine grace and beauty of his manner 
must have constituted his most striking distinction. 
A sight of him revealed at once God and heaven 
to the beholder. 1 Those who saw him believed 
he could do anything. Probably in some cases, 
they imputed to him as miracles what were per- 
fectly natural events. 

Let not such a concession disturb any of our 

1 " Speaking he gave a radiant smile, such as seems might 
open Paradise/' said an old Italian poet ; but no translation does 
justice to his words : — 

" Gitto parlando un lampeggiante riso . 
Tal che sembro s'aprisse il Paradise" 



SERMON VIII. 



89 



minds. The Evangelists wrote emotionally, and 
not as naturalists and philosophers. It was through 
the medium of their boundless love of his wonder- 
ful personality that they saw everything ; and the 
more miracles they ascribed to him, the more fit- 
ting was their history, as it seemed to them, to his 
superhuman grace. Let us see in that grace his 
unapproached preeminence, compared with which 
a prodigy more or less is of small account. 

Better than all his miracles, though he removed 
mountains, better than all the testimonies of his- 
tory, though we had libraries at our tongue's end, 
better than all the arguments of the learned, though 
we had the greatest intellect ever known among 
men, would have been one moment's sight of Je- 
sus. We could not doubt that he was from God 
whom we saw to be full of a heavenly grace. 

A deeper Christian consciousness will contin- 
ually recognize a deeper and deeper meaning in 
the divine records of his life. They are not to 
pass away in all this multiplication of books and 
progress of literature ; they will never grow old, 
but the more profoundly they are interpreted by 
the spirit of Jesus in the soul, the more closely 
will they lead us to Him who spake as never man 
spake, and at whose manner of utterance the peo- 
ple were astonished. 



SERMON IX. 



THE TWELVE THRONES. 

u Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Is- 
rael." — Matthew xix. 28. 

We have laid aside in modern times the custom 
for a great teacher to select certain men to attend 
him from place to place, that they may be moulded 
by his conversation and character. 

Climate has had something to do with this 
change. In Palestine, Greece, Italy, teachers and 
pupils could make the hill-sides and groves their 
school ; but in our colder latitudes they must have 
buildings to shelter them. 

The modern large use of books has contributed 
to the same result. In ancient times instruction 
was chiefly oral and conversational, and could be 
given while journeying on foot from town to town, 
or from mountain to lake. With us the existence 
of libraries, and other apparatus of education, has 
localized instruction. 

Accordingly, in our day, great teachers are 
found where there are lecture-rooms and libra- 
ries. Pupils go there. Over here in Cambridge 
there is a teacher renowned for his knowledge of 
natural history, and young men interested in that 



SERMON IX. 



91 



branch of knowledge, throng around him. There 
are medical lectures of great ability in Boston, 
and theological lectures of a high order in An- 
dover, and students resort to the distinguished 
professors referred to. 

In former days the same end was reached, but 
by other means. It was in the open air, in the 
grove of Academus in Athens, that Plato was at- 
tended by sympathizing followers, who caught up 
every word he uttered; while Aristotle's instruc- 
tions, equally oral and conversational, were given 
in the same city, when he was walking near the 
Lyceum. 

These men lived four hundred years before 
Christ. Their fashion of peripatetic and colloquial 
instruction survived for twelve or fifteen centu- 
ries. At length the establishment of universities 
gave fixed places of education. 

But even after universities had been founded, a 
man great in any one line had his pupils who at- 
tended him wherever he went. The renowned 
sculptor, Michael Angelo, had constantly about 
him, in his house and studio, many disciples who 
eagerly listened to his conversation, and carefully 
noted the ways of his art. The great painter, 
Raphael, was followed wherever he went by many 
young men, enthusiastic admirers of the artist, 
and some of them were so moulded by his genius 
that their works have passed for his. The emi- 
nent architects of the Middle Ages, who reared 



92 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



the cathedrals of Europe, had their personal fol- 
lowers. They themselves were the master-masons, 
while their disciples were the entered apprentices 
and fellow-craft. 

Even within the memory of the present gener- 
ation, celebrated lawyers, and doctors, and minis- 
ters, had many professional students ; and some 
think that this private instruction was better than 
that now afforded by public professional schools. 

J esus followed the fashion of his times in select- 
ing certain men to be his disciples, and to attend 
him from place to place. Now let us see where 
he found them. 

If here in New England a great mind had some 
fresh views in philosophy or religion which he de- 
sired to plant deeply in the hearts and consciences 
of a few earnest men, I doubt if he would go to 
Boston to find them, though Boston be the place 
of the highest culture of New England. Every- 
where in the great centres of intellectual activity 
the best minds are, for the most part, by birth, 
training, family influence, party or sect, already 
committed to the prevailing opinions ; so that the 
supposed teacher would have a double task to per- 
form — to put the old ideas out before he could 
put the new ideas in. As a general thing, the 
men of free, fresh, and strong minds do not come 
from these great centres of population. 

Thus how few of the leading men of Boston 
were born in Boston ! They were born back in 



SERMON IX. 



93 



the country. They came down from the Berk- 
shire Hills, or from the shadows of the White 
Hills, or the Green Mountains ; and though they 
were as angular as the stones of the country, and 
were not all rounded smooth like the stones of the 
sea-side, they were for this reason more individual, 
they were more ready to take up new ideas, and 
these will stand out more distinctly and omnipo- 
tently in their minds. The intellect of the great 
cities would soon stagnate, would become the mere 
reservoir of hereditary opinions, and an unyield- 
ing conservatism, were it not for the continual im- 
portation of fresh country freedom and life. It is 
not the country water only that the city needs to 
have brought to it ; it needs the country life as 
well. 

Jesus might have gone down to Jerusalem and 
selected his followers among the leaders of the great 
sects that then wrangled in that capital. But it 
is not likely that one of them could have taken in 
his Gospel in its simplicity and entireness ; or if 
comprehended, it is not likely that one of them 
could have kept it from being fatally mixed up 
with his own previous opinions ; or if unmixed, it 
is not likely that the literary training of one of 
them would have permitted him to give a plain, 
unvarnished report of what he had seen and 
heard. 

What an illustration of all this we have in the 
case of Josephus. Josephus was a Jerusalem Jew, 



94 



WORDS OF A FRIEND, 



a contemporary of the Apostles, descended from 
one of the first families of the city, and accom- 
plished in the best literature of his times. His 
stilted sentences, the grandiloquent speeches he 
puts into the mouths of those of whom he writes, 
make him one of the most tedious of all authors. 
It is impossible that he could have written such 
chapters as those which record the raising of Laz- 
arus, or the cure of the man born blind ; it is im- 
possible that he could have reported, in anything 
like the wonderful charm in which we now have 
them, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Parable 
of the Prodigal Son. He could as well have writ- 
ten the " Iliad," or the " Paradise Lost." 

There is no reason to doubt that Josephus had 
a mind as open and candid as any one living in 
Jerusalem at his time. Yet he could not compre- 
hend Christianity. Right under his eyes events 
were taking place which were the most wonderful 
and pregnant recorded in history, yet he could not 
see their significance. A new religion, which 
none of his family or sect patronized, he hardly 
condescended to notice ; for it is a matter of doubt 
whether the one sentence in his book referring to 
Jesus was written by him or not. If genuine, it 
is most remarkable for its diplomatic non-commit- 
talism. He was a true child of the city. 

Jesus took his disciples, all but one, from the 
up-country place called Galilee. It was called 
Galilee of the Gentiles because it had an unusual 



SERMON IX. 



95 



commingling of people of different nationalities. 
As a consequence of its position and population, 
the conventionalisms of Jerusalem, the sacerdotal 
authority of Jerusalem, and the influence of its 
great sects, the Sadducees and Pharisees, were 
there scarcely felt. It had a brogue and uncouth- 
ness of manners often ridiculed in Jerusalem ; but 
it had also more freedom of thought, more open- 
ness to conviction, accompanied by the simple 
tastes and pure habits of men who got their living 
chiefly as fishermen on the beautiful lake of their 
country. 

If you know some town in Vermont, on the bor- 
ders of some of the beautiful lakes of that State, 
— a town where life is free from the prejudices 
and corrupting influences of Boston or New York, 
yet where thought is active, and minds are open, 
and tastes are simple, and morals pure, — it may 
help you to comprehend the position of Galilee. 

Now let us see whom Jesus selected for his fol- 
lowers. 

Though not born in Galilee Jesus had lived in 
that region from a child. He knew the chief men 
of the place. No doubt he had had long talks 
with them. We are deceived by the brief way in 
which, in the Gospels, the calling of his disciples 
is described. " Follow me," he said, and it is 
added, " immediately they left their nets and fol- 
lowed him." But we must understand this of the 
i final notice to attend him. It is not unlikely that 



96 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



for months and for years he had been preparing 
their minds for this step, and had obtained their 
consent to unite their fortunes with his when the 
proper moment arrived. 

What makes this more probable is the fact that 
a consciousness of the work to which he was 
called dawned on the mind of Christ very early. 
When he was but twelve years old he felt that 
he " must be about his Father's business." Be- 
tween that time and the commencement of his 
ministry was a period of eighteen years. Not a 
hint is given us of what he was doing all that 
time ; but no doubt he had his eye upon the men 
around him. 

He saw the ardor of Peter, and felt that he 
would make a valuable follower if his impulsive- 
ness could be toned down and governed. He saw 
the gentle traits of John, and knew that there was 
a nature in which might be seen some of the most 
winning graces of his Gospel. He saw the judicial 
mind of James, the crystal clearness and unself- 
ishness of Matthew, the calm, quiet demeanor of 
some older men, Simon and Andrew, who would 
bring important elements to the school he was 
about to gather around him. How interesting it 
would have been if we had been told of the care 
with which Jesus singled out these men, and of 
the repeated talks he had had with them. 

But the extreme brevity of the Gospel narra- 
tives did not admit any reference to these prepara- * 



SERMON IX. 



97 



tory steps. We can supply the gap in our knowl- 
edge only by reflecting upon what must have 
happened in such a case as this. Mohammed spent 
twelve years of earnest talk before he attached a 
single person to his cause. And his was a religion 
of lust and blood, to which men, in those barbar- 
ous ages, could more easily be converted than to a 
gospel of peace and love. 

It is pleasing to think that Jesus did not find 
his task so difficult. He had better materials to 
deal with. Above all, to aid his success, he had 
the divinity of his mission and character, raying 
out in his youthful look, and voice, and manners, 
and life. 

At length he had the consent of a selected few, 
who stand ready to leave all and attend him as 
soon as he tells them that the fitting hour had 
come. Henceforth for three years, if that be the 
duration of our Lord's ministry, they journey with 
him, and talk with him, and fast with him, and 
pray with him. They are pupils under his in- 
struction. He is president, professors, tutors, 
everything in this college. The lake- sides of Gal- 
ilee and the hill-sides of Judea are his lecture- 
rooms. The farmer sowing his grain, the travel- 
ler waylaid between Jerusalem and Jericho, the 
younger son wasting his substance in riotous liv- 
ing, two men building houses, one on the sand and 
the other on a rock, the rains, the dews, the sky, 

7 



98 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, — these 
and such as these were his text-books. 

Did his disciples improve under his personal 
instruction ? 

That is a great question. I should like to gather 
up all the indications of the moral transformation 
of these men. True, it was slow work. How 
often the patience of Jesus must have been tried ! 
Even with the freest minds he could select, he 
was doomed to feel the inveteracy of Jewish prej- 
udice, and the invincibleness of Jewish obstinacy. 
It only makes us wonder how it was that Jesus, a 
Jew himself, got out of all that. What a miracle 
to see a man emancipate himself from the temper 
of his race, and the spirit of his age, and get away 
from that mountain-load of superstition beneath 
which everybody around him was pressed down ! 

The best proof that the pupils of Christ came 
to be essentially like their Master is furnished by 
comparing their writings with the words of Jesus. 
We have the Gospels of Matthew and John, the 
sermons of Peter, and the Epistles of the same 
Apostle, with those also of James and John, and 
Jude. Thus more than one third of the disciples 
were authors who have bequeathed to us their 
works. We see the sort of consciousness with 
which they were written, and can compare them 
with the words of their Master. They do not 
set forth, in substance or spirit, a Gospel differing 
from that of Christ, but substantially the same 
word, and the same spirit of truth and grace. 



SERMON IX. 



99 



They did get into the mind of Jesus. They 
did come to comprehend his thought, and to be in- 
spired by his great, loving soul. They did come 
to see his truth disentangled — not wholly, for 
that has not yet taken place, but to a great extent 
at least — from their hereditary customs and pre- 
possessions, and to renounce the hope of a tem- 
poral kingdom, though that stuck the strongest in 
their minds. They did come to feel the divine 
beauty and power of Christ's life, and to count 
the loss of everything else as nothing, if they might 
gain that. 

So it was with all of them except Judas Iscariot, 
the only one of the Twelve who was not a Gali- 
lean. Doubtless Jesus knew his character from 
the first, and was not unwilling to have one with 
him, who, after he had seen all Christ's most inti- 
mate life, had no confession to make but this, that 
he had betrayed " innocent blood." 

To encourage his disciples, Jesus, in a few re- 
markable words, gives them a glimpse of the posi- 
tion they shall occupy in the coming ages of the 
world, " Ye who have followed me in this new 
creating of all things, when the Son of Man shall 
sit on the throne of his glory, ye shall sit on twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 
What does this mean ? 

To sit on a throne judging was the Hebrew 
phrase to express the possession of a delegated 
commanding influence, like the governors or 



100 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



judges of a province under the emperor ; and by 
the twelve tribes of Israel was often denoted the 
whole world, as the Jews held that all the world 
would ultimately be numbered with those tribes. 
The meaning of the text then is, " Ye shall be 
vice-royal governors of the world." 

But how is this ? These humble fishermen of 
Galilee kings ? Such men as Peter, and John, and 
James, and Matthew to govern the world? It 
seems absurd. How contemptible their names by 
the side of those of Csesar, and Charlemagne, and 
Cromwell, and Napoleon ! In the world's history, 
compared with these great rulers, those illiterate 
J e ws — w r hat are they ? 

When we ask this, let us remember that beside 
the kingdom of armies, and forts, and ships of war, 
and dynasties, and thrones, there is a kingdom in 
the world of thought, an empire of ever-living 
truths, before which armies, and forts, and thrones 
are the shifting playthings of a day. 

If you enter the Chapel of King Henry the 
Seventh, in Westminster Abbey, you see the effi- 
gies of the kings and queens of England ; and 
among them that of Queen Elizabeth, w T ho gave her 
name to one of the most brilliant ages in English 
history. As you stand there in the silence of that 
charnel-house, and amid all that mouldering earth 
of royalty, you feel what transient pageants these 
kings are, and that Queen Bess with the rest of 
them is dead, dead as the dust, all dead long ago, 



SERMON IX. 



101 



and nothing of her now lives. But a puny child, 
born at the beginning of her reign, and of whom 
every one doubted whether it had stamina enough 
to grow up, saw and stated certain principles of 
philosophy, which have revolutionized modern in- 
quiry, and which, pointing out the track of all 
true progress, still live all over the enlightened 
world, and will live as long as science and civiliza- 
tion endure. What a mightier sovereign has Bacon 
been than she who is now nothing but dust ! 

Three hundred years ago a monk found by 
chance in his convent a copy of the Bible. By 
the side of the kings that then filled the thrones 
of Europe he was a helpless and insignificant man. 
But by the study of that Bible he set in motion 
a few cardinal truths, which have tumbled down 
crowns and thrones as baubles ; and what a king 
in the world of ideas has Martin Luther been ! 

Less than a hundred years ago a few men as- 
sembled at Philadelphia, plain, unlettered men, 
brought up here in the woods of North America ; 
and they published a Declaration of Independence, 
the principles of which are working in all the en- 
lightened nations of the world, and are proving 
that Franklin, and Jefferson, and Adams, were 
kings in the empire of thought ; kings before whom 
many a crowned head has bowed down, and others 
ere long must submit. 

Speak not of the obscurity of those first disciples 
of Christ. The truths they received from their 



102 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Master, penetrating and transforming their own 
souls, so that they gave them forth to the world in 
the freshness and power with which Jesus uttered 
them, these have made them kings and priests to 
the world. The customs of life, the thoughts and 
ways of mankind, the institutions of society, the 
principles of government, the thrones of empire, 
they are moulding after their Master's ideal. 
Every age as it passes by exalts them to a higher 
seat of influence, and is making more manifest the 
truth of the words, " Ye shall sit on twelve thrones 
judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 



SERMON X. 



DOING. 

* Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ? " 
Luke vi. 46. 

If any one were asked to designate the most 
salient feature of the Christian religion, could he do 
it better than to describe it as a practical religion ? 
See how it lays the great stress on what a man 
does, not on what he says ; on being, not on seem- 
ing ; on his character, not on his professions ; on 
his daily life, not on occasional ceremonies. 

True, it does not overlook the inner man of the 
heart, the great central beliefs and principles of 
the soul, which are to all human character what 
the beams and sleepers are to a house, that on 
which everything is built, and without which there 
would be no solidity and endurance. To disre- 
gard all reference to a man's innermost convictions 
and motives would be acting like him who should 
undertake to repair a faulty watch merely by tin- 
kering its dial and its hands. Nothing effectual is 
done until its wheels and spring are set right. In 
like manner, of all empirical and foolish conceits 
there is none like that which looks no deeper than 
the veneering of a superficial morality. 



104 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



But here is seen that good sense, that practical 
sagacity, which distinguishes the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. Why do we look to a man's beliefs and 
motives ? Is it enough when these are right ? 
Are we satisfied with the watch whose wheels and 
springs can be proved to be the best in the world ? 
There must be some working evidence of this 
excellence. The hands of the time-keeper must 
demonstrate a useful result, and do it continually, 
and do it unfailingly, or the instrument is worth- 
less. 

And just so is it with the Christian. No doubt 
you tell me something important when you say that 
his inner works are good, his principles sound, his 
beliefs scriptural, his motives evangelical. If they 
are so, I expect to see the proofs of this in his daily 
life, in his uprightness and integrity, in his justice 
and honor, in the charity and sweetness of his tem- 
per. And if I do not find these, if I find craft, self- 
ishness, scorn, and bigotry instead, who does not 
see that the character is a monstrous lie to the pro- 
fession, and there must be some stupendous defect 
within ? 

Amid all the complaints of modern neglect of 
sacred things, and prevailing irreverence and irre- 
ligion, it must be admitted, I think, that this gos- 
pel method of judging men by their deeds and not 
by their words, is far more common now than it 
has been, so far as we know, at any former period. 
I was talking the other day with a bright-minded 



SERMON X. 105 

man ninety-three years old ; and I ventured to 
ask him how these times compared, in point of 
moral character, with those which he remembered 
as a boy. 

You know how common it is for aged people to 
complain of modern degeneracy, and to think that 
nothing is equal to the good old times. It is cu- 
rious to observe how this complaint reappears in 
every generation ; so that, if it be well founded, 
the world has been continually growing w r orse. 
No doubt the explanation is that we are all de- 
ceived through the ignorance of our early years. 
We find the world to be not so good as we at first 
imagined it ; and though it is continually improv- 
ing under our eyes, nevertheless by our advancing 
knowledge we see it more and more below the 
ideal of our younger days ; and hence the old 
complain. 

But the patriarch to whom I refer did not com- 
plain. Said he, " Three or four generations ago, 
professions, forms, conventionalisms, outside pre- 
tenses, and shows, had a sway of which we can 
now hardly conceive. In this respect our times 
are infinitely better than those. What do we care 
for the image and superscription, if there be the 
ring of the true metal ? " 

Who can doubt that my venerated friend was 
right? If a man has nothing but an approved 
creed, a punctilious performance of ceremonies, 
officious godly pretensions, and a sanctimonious 



106 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



look, he has fallen on the wrong epoch for him. 
Never could he do less business on such a capital. 
A keen, sagacious, practical age pierces in its 
look right through all his outside shows. It asks 
what is he as a man, what is his daily life, what 
good does he do, what fruit of a kind and benefi- 
cent life does he bring forth ? And if it finds no 
good answer to these questions, it strips off his 
broad phylacteries, and leaves him in tatters, an 
object of contempt, and the verdict of all true men 
is — served him right. 

And what I say is, that all this is more in ac- 
cordance with the practical spirit of the Gospel 
than the temper of any preceding time. No doubt 
our age has many faults to be laid to its charge. 
It is greatly in love with physical good, and mate- 
rial prosperity. It has too little sympathy with 
the religious customs of former days. Churches 
are rarely crowded as they used to be ; and rev- 
erence and faith have too much given place to 
railways and factories. No one can deny all this, 
and who does not regret it ? 

But there is a compensation. It would be sense- 
less not to recognize it, and ingratitude not to be 
thankful for it. I have no fears for the final inter- 
ests of piety and worship. They rest on our hu- 
man nature, and this is not about to desert us. Let 
us be assured that they will by and by regain their 
hold on the public heart. In a period of tran- 
sition from one set of traditions to another there 



SERMON X. 



107 



may be for a while a wide-spread indifference ; but 
the deep wants of our common humanity cannot 
long be smothered. The present neglect of the 
forms of public devotion is in part the reaction of 
a former extravagant estimate of their importance. 
A better judgment will take its place. Things 
will find their just level, and the pendulum oscil- 
lating too far one way will return. 

No doubt it is in part, also, the result of an ab- 
sorbing materialism, not long, we hope, to hold its 
usurped dominion. We are told that a legend, 
still current in Constantinople, relates that when 
the Turks took that city, in 1453, and broke down 
the doors of St. Sophia, a Christian priest, officiat- 
ing at that moment, hastily took the consecrated 
vessels, and walking down one of the aisles with 
solemn steps, vanished in the solid wall. The 
sound of his voice is still faintly heard within the 
masonry where he offers his prayers ; and when 
St. Sophia shall be restored to Christian worship, 
as the legend says, the wall shall open of its own 
accord, and the immured priest, issuing from his 
retreat, shall finish at the altar the service began 
four centuries ago. 

Let us not doubt that the time will come when 
the materialism of this age, which has so much 
overrun everything, and seized even our churches, 
will give place to psalm and prayer, now only in- 
differently heard, but then to resume their former 
interest and power. 



108 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Meanwhile, what an immense gain to throw off 
the load of former shams and hypocrisies, to be 
able to pierce through solemn pretenses and to ex- 
pose the hollow within, to see men as they are, to 
judge their principles by their fruits, and to know 
that it is nothing if they say, " Lord, Lord," while 
neglecting to do the things which have been com- 
manded ? 

This gain is so great, so sure, of such immense 
and immeasurable advantage, that I think that w 7 e 
can well put up with much reaction against forms 
and rites for the sake of securing it ; knowing as 
we do that progress is never uniform, but rather 
by jets and springs, first in one direction and then 
in another, and glad that the world, on the whole, 
is coming to be more in sympathy with the spirit 
of him who uttered the words of the text. 

And vet how blind some men seem to be to the 

4/ 

fact of progress in this direction. They cannot 
see God working to-day, working in the hearts 
of the people of our times. Yes, w T orking in our 
own hearts, working underneath all our eagerness 
for modern improvements, and material prosperity, 
and physical good, and advancing science and art, 
here carrying on one of the divine designs ap- 
pointed for this age of the world, and in its place 
just as important, just as godlike, as any design 
unfolded in the ages gone by. Such men, with 
owlish vision and gravity, see better in the dark, 
and admire nothing till distance lends enchantment 



SERMON X. 



109 



to the view. They give all manner of bad names 
to the age in which we live, they wish their lot 
had been cast in the better fortune of some former 
period, and praise with extravagant laudations 
what they call "the ages of faith." 

But let us well understand what those ages 
were. What if the entire body of the people 
then accepted all that their priests taught them, 
nor failed in one point of their ritual, thronged 
their churches with uncounted multitudes, and 
went through the services with the promptness and 
regularity of a military drill ? Can we forget that 
the mass of the people were nearly as ignorant as 
the brutes, that nothing but force had sway, that 
violence and lust on all sides prevailed, and that 
of the numberless institutions which now give to 
society at large education, culture, refinement, 
some knowledge of the laws of our moral and 
spiritual nature, hardly a solitary one was then 
known ? 

It is to stultify one's self to praise those times 
as better than ours, times when outward, artificial 
things, and not character, were thought to secure 
salvation, when a man's professions were more 
than his conduct, the sign of the cross more than 
virtue, the bending of the knee, the burning of 
incense, more than pure and holy living. 

Thank God, that is not the temper of this age. 
It looks to sincere, honest, substantial goodness as 
the one thing needful. Those who would substi- 



110 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



tute something else for this, those who are bewil- 
dered by the upheaval of old ways, and look back, 
and sigh for a return to the shrines which the 
world has outgrown, may for a while find encour- 
agement among the wavering and timid ; but the 
great law of progress will have its own course, and 
they and their works will find the fulfillment of 
the words that M on whom this stone shall fall it 
will grind them to powder." Goodness, daily 
practical goodness, the age is coming to have an 
irrepressible consciousness that this is the one thing 
needful. And it will honor such goodness wher- 
ever it may be found. It may be in those who do 
not worship as we worship, or believe as we be- 
lieve ; but it will honor it just as Christ recognized 
it, and praised it in a pagan centurion, and a de- 
spised Samaritan. 

I was reading this last week, in a French news- 
paper, an account of an event not yet translated 
for any of our American journals. The French 
Academy bestows every year what it denominates 
the " Prize of Virtue," given to the person who is 
thought to have performed the most beautiful and 
noble act. Its bestowal is a great event, and its 
reception is a great honor. This year it was con- 
ferred upon a woman, unmarried, of seventy years 
of age. What had she done to merit it ? 

She is a school-teacher, of singular winning and 
effective influence, who for fifty years has not 
been absent from her school for one single day ; 



SERMON X. 



Ill 



and who, for those fifty years has employed most 
of her nio-hts as the affectionate and .devoted nurse 

o 

of the sick, and throughout her village she has 
made a revolution in the way of taking care of the 
sick, introducing changes in clothing, diet, treat- 
ment, which have saved scores of lives. 

The report assigning the prize to this woman 
. was made by M. Sainte - Beuve, the eloquent 
French author and critic, who said, " It is easy 
to pronounce that w T ord charity, and it is easy to 
enjoy a festival of the Academy. But think of 
those toils and sacrifices, those patient days, those 
watchful nights of fifty years, and think what a 
vast contribution of good this humble woman made 
to humanity, w r hile thousands rolling in wealth, 
perhaps muttering their prayers superstitiously, 
lead lives that are good for nothing." 

And this woman — was she Catholic or Protes- 
tant, was she Episcopalian or Methodist, did she 
sign a creed, or did she belong to the sect of no 
creed ? It is not named. It is not once thought 
of. In the ages of faith I fear she would have fared 
badly, good as she was, had she been a Hebrew, 
or a Waldensian. All her meek and patient self- 
sacrifices would have passed for nothing, if they 
had not been done under the banner of the ap- 
proved Church. We in these times see that she 
was a true disciple of him who judges the tree 
by its fruits, and who himself went about doing 
good. 



112 



WORDS OK A FRIEND. 



Gentle and faithful follower of the Lord Jesus 
Christ ! Thy humble name, till lately unheard 
of beyond the obscure place of thy toil, may be 
mentioned even in this distant land ; the memory 
of thy faithful goodness may be as incense on the 
air of this parish church ; and Rosalie Marion 
may have the praise of her, named by the great 
Master, who had done what she could. 

The simplicity of the leading object of the Gos- 
pel, the stress it lays on the one point of a prac- 
tically good life, appear in striking contrast with 
other systems of religion. An old Rabbinical 
legend says that the law of Moses contained six 
hundred and thirteen precepts, counting both the 
positive and the negative. This was in the child- 
hood of the chosen people. To children you must 
prescribe everything. It is only when they have 
grown up and got some culture, that they can clas- 
sify, and reduce details to principles. Then they 
may relax the bondage of six hundred and thir- 
teen commandments, and fix upon the few great 
truths that underlie them. 

This is exactly what happened. Jesus said that 
all the law and the prophets were in the two com- 
mandments of love to God and love to man. A 
great process in simplifying this — from six hun- 
dred and thirteen to two ! But it took more than 
a thousand years to reach it. I dare say there 
were men who thought Christ's statement was too 
radical and rationalistic. They probably exclaimed, 



SERMON X. 



113 



" What! not a word about the great historical doc- 
trines and the dear old rites that have come down 
to us through so many generations ? " But I think 
that men of open and generous culture must see 
in Christ's analysis a proof of the sound and sin- 
cere action of his mind. He felt the desire which 
every man of thought feels to get to the bottom of 
the subject, the great central truth, simple and 
grand, around which everything revolves ; and he 
found it in the practical precepts on which he laid 
so much stress. 

If we only remember that practical goodness is 
the great end to which the gospel points, how 
many things may we see in this age that merit 
our highest praise as exemplifications of the Chris- 
tian spirit. What, after all, are these efforts to 
lift up the wretched classes that vegetate and fester 
in the shadow of our boasted 'civilization, but the 
continuation in other ways of the beautiful and 
blessed deeds of Jesus — works of love suited to 
our age as his works of love were suited to his age. 
Those who organize and direct these operations 
compose so many churches of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, churches not manipulated in the old forms, 
but doing grandly the old work. 

In our late terrible civil war, what w r ere the 
Sanitary and Christian Commissions but the most 
effective churches of the Redeemer ; and every 
agent of theirs, going to the field of battle, carry- 
ing physical relief and Christian cheer, amid the 

8 



114 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



awful carnage, what was he but a minister of Him 
who came to save men's lives — a minister ordained 
if not by imposition of hands, but, better, by the 
Holy Ghost, and just so far as he had the right 
spirit in his soul, standing in the true Apostolical 
Succession ? 

And so later, when millions of a long-abused 
race had been thrown upon the care of a Christian 
people, what were the thousands of teachers who 
went to give the simplest elements of instruction 
to them, but so many Evangelists sent forth to 
prepare the way, to fill every valley, and make 
the crooked straight, and the rough smooth, and 
prepare a highw r ay for our God ? All these benef- 
icent works, just so far as they are pervaded by a 
spirit of practical goodness, are they not Christ's 
works, their agencies Christian agencies, they them- 
selves churches of Jesus Christ, organized not after 
the old forms, but in the true spirit ? 

I think it becomes the regularly acknowledged 
Church of Christ, instead of mourning that so many 
desert its normal temples and rites, to rejoice that 
its work is done in these abnormal forms, and to 
have cheerful faith that by and by, if we can keep 
a Christian temper towards them, many engaged 
in these humanitarian charities will come rejoicing 
to the ancient and beloved fold, though they stand 
aloof from it now. 

The newspapers of the last month have been 
full of accounts of the exhibitions of horticultural 



SERMON X 



115 



and agricultural societies. It is the full, ripened, 
precious fruit of our trees and gardens and farms, 
that we assemble to note. We do not call these 
societies together in the early spring when the 
leaves first appear, nor yet a month later when the 
blossoms put forth their beauty. We wait for 
the fruit, and when that comes, we rejoice over 
the work done, the end reached, the reward at- 
tained, the product garnered, without which all 
else has come short of its design. 

So it is with Him whom we call our Teacher 
and Guide. He, too, looks for the fruit, and will 
praise and reward nothing but the fruit, the fruit 
of a true, useful, rounded, completed, holy life. 
We come here to join in the devout prayers of 
the Church, and to send up a sweet hymn of 
praise. But all this is but the means to a higher 
end, and that is to have his spirit to shine through 
and through our daily life, to have his loving tem- 
per, and to do his blessed work. We will not for- 
get the Eucharist at his table ; but to be Christ- 
like in our lives is the Eucharist with which he 
will be most pleased. 



SERMON XI. 



EFFECT OF DOING. 

" If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God." — John vii. 17. 

A change in a man's manner of living often 
brings after it an unexpected change in his feelings. 
It will silently have more influence than all your 
logic and persuasion. You may argue with him 
and produce no conviction, and entreat him and 
win no consent ; for he has a thousand objections 
at his tongue's end, and it may be that circum- 
stances around him act like a cast-iron frame, and 
hold him tight as a vice. 

But if you can lift him out of these circum- 
stances you may find he has new fountains of feel- 
ing unsealed, new desires and aims springing up, 
by which the whole man may be gradually and 
unconsciously moulded anew. 

What a change^ is sometimes produced by so 
small a matter as a change in one's dress. It has 
been said that every man is good-natured on the 
morning on which he puts on a clean shirt. At 
anj' rate, if you take off a man's soiled and tattered 
garments, and array him in new clothes, he has a 
sense of self-respect, and a motive to good be- 



SERMON XL 



117 



havior, to which he was a stranger before. He 
feels that he is somebody, and can appear as an 
equal among respectable folks, and must maintain 
a character accordingly. All this makes him open 
to good impressions which would have been pow- 
erless while he was in his dirty rags. A change 
in his manner of living has changed all his tastes 
and aims. 

So also what new feelings follow the acquisition 
of property, even if little in amount. The reve- 
lations of savings institutions on this point are 
instructive. Men who felt that they never could 
get on in the world, that the Fates were against 
them, that there was no use in trying, that all your 
encouraging arguments and flattering words are 
absolutely thrown away, and that therefore they 
would continue to spend recklessly what little 
they had got, such men have been turned com- 
pletely about when they had a hundred dollars to 
their credit in the savings-bank. They have be- 
come prudent, careful, painstaking, denying them- 
selves foolish expenditures so as to add to their 
little store. This slight change has given them 
something to live for beside immediate indulgence. 
They have new hopes before them, larger and 
wiser plans, and are open to elevating influences 
to which they were iron-clad before. A change 
in their mode of life has changed all their tastes 
and aims. 

Then again, what purified sympathies and better 



118 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



resolutions dawn on a man if he has removed from 
a filthy and shabby dwelling to a good home. 
Here is the call for improved lodging-houses. A 
poor family in some rickety and tumble-down ten- 
ement is in nearly a hopeless state as long as it 
stays there. The continual sight of squalor and 
misery benumbs all energy. They are in no con- 
dition to appreciate the pictures you draw of a 
better life which they might lead. Your words 
will be vain. But take them out of their wretched 
environment, put them into clean and comfortable 
apartments, and, without your saying a word, this 
alteration of their lot will do w r hat you desire. It 
will awaken human sympathies and aspirations 
where there appeared nothing but animal instincts 
before. A change in their mode of life has 
changed all their feelings and aims. 

How often w r e meet with illustrations of the 
same truth in turning over the leaves of biogra- 
phies. In one case we may find that a man has 
been lifted out of the rut of a careless and wicked 
life simply by removal from one town to another. 
He had a set of companions who were always 
dragging him down, men who, by their banter and 
ridicule, kept him on their own low level, and 
turned off as if from a coat of mail all the most 
pointed w T eapons of reason and conscience and re- 
ligion. But in his new residence he found new 
intimacies. The aspirations of his better nature, 
no longer repressed and scorned, had a chance to 



SERMON XL 



119 



grow, and they made themselves felt, and he be- 
came a man. A change in his mode of life had 
changed all his habits and plans. 

Perhaps we shall find in another case that an 
appointment to some position of duty and trust has 
waked a man up to courage and effort. He had 
had no faith in himself, no high aims w T hich he must 
pursue, no exalted ends which he must struggle 
to reach, and friends mourned over the apathy 
and sluggishness of a nature which they felt sure 
was tuned to higher issues. But some office he 
held acceptably and creditably awakened his am- 
bition. It revealed to him the fact that he could 
do something and be something. He found hopes 
and plans dawning on his mind which a few months 
before would have been absolutely inconceivable. 
These put him on his mettle, and led him from 
one attainment to another, till he reached a high 
place of usefulness and honor. A change in his 
mode of life changed all his feelings and aspira- 
tions. 

I once knew a young man of fine endowments 
and education who had shown such a decided lurch 
for a rowdy and dissipated life, that all who knew 
him predicted an infamous career. A fall that he 
received made him a bed-ridden cripple for life. It 
took him to his home — a place where he had hith- 
erto spent only the few reluctant hours of sleep. It 
took him to the society of his sisters, with whose 
gentle and refined tastes he had had but little sym- 



120 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



pathy. It took him to the instruction of books, 
which had been nothing but a bore. It took him 
to self-reflection, which he had done all he could to 
drown. Feelings and aspirations began to arise 
which he did not dream that his nature possessed. 

During the years of his somewhat protracted 
life, his bedside was a place where his friends 
loved to commune with one, who to large attain- 
ments of knowledge, added the sweet and beautiful 
traits of Christian faith. He used to say that the 
fall that crippled him was the best blessing he had 
ever received ; and he gave another illustration of 
the truth I have been setting forth, that a change 
in one's mode of life often brings after it a com- 
plete internal revolution. 

I will add only one other illustration of the same 
fact. It has often been noticed what a change is 
wrought in the foreigner, the Irishman, the Scotch- 
man, the German, the Norwegian, merely by his 
becoming a citizen of this country. In his na- 
tive land very likely he was nobody, and always 
would be nobody. Old petrified institutions kept 
him down, kept him poor^ kept him ignorant, kept 
him humiliated in a degraded social caste. 

Here, on the other hand, in the United States, 
he has a thousand chances of rising. He becomes 
interested in public affairs. He has himself some 
influence in directing them. The ballot-box is an 
educator, and it would not be easy to overrate the 
educating influence of American institutions and 



SERMON XL 



121 



American life. It inspires him with self-respect, 
encourages him to obtain information, wakes up 
his nature, makes a new man of him. In the old 
country you might have argued with him forever 
without producing a hundredth part of the effect 
which has followed from his change of residence ; 
for a change in his mode of life has revolutionized 
his feelings and aspirations. 

Let me come now to apply these illustrations, to 
unfold the meaning of the text, " If any man will 
do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God." 

I understand these words to set forth an exact 
scientific truth, precisely like that which is obvious 
in all the examples I have adduced. A change in 
a man's life, by which it is made Christian, will 
carry with it changes in his feelings and convic- 
tions which will preclude all doubt. A good life 
unseals the fountains of new tastes and aspirations. 
A good life gives the dawn of new hopes, and pro- 
poses broader and higher plans. A good life wakes 
up a man's nature, inspires self-respect, encourages 
self-discipline, places him in a condition where his 
highest faculties swing easily, and work to the 
greatest advantage. A good life takes a man out 
of the environment that is pulling him down and 
keeping him back, and shows him how he can 
make the most of himself. A good life is contin- 
ually disclosing a view of something better, and 
kindling desires to be something better, forgetting 



122 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



what is behind, and reaching forward to what is be- 
fore. A good life gives the ability to see the infinite 
beauty and beneficence of instructions to whose 
significance one was stone-blind before. A good 
life carries with it its own evidence, and makes a 
man feel, to the roots of his consciousness and ex- 
perience, in every beating of his heart, in every 
fibre of his body, to the very marrow of his bones, 
that Christ's spiritual truths are the spiritual laws 
of this universe, and are backed by God's wisdom 
and power. 

Country people have a saying, that if you clear 
off the primitive forest and cultivate the soil, fresh 
springs of water will come to the surface as if by 
the touch of sunshine. In like manner if we cut 
down certain other tall growths, and grub out cer- 
tain other roots, and give a Christian culture to 
our nature, and let the warm sunshine of God's 
love fall upon it, there will be unexpected springs 
of emotions and conviction flowing in our souls. 

The new instincts that grow with every well- 
ordered life are the antennse of the soul by which 
it will feel its way, and feel it sure. They are the 
aroma of our nature to which Christian woman has 
ever been more responsive than man ; and if rea- 
son be the staff by which we steady our steps, and 
logic be the crutches by which we hobble along 
when crippled, our spiritual instincts are the wings 
by which we mount and soar. 

Nor is it difficult to state what some of these 



SERMON XL 



123 



instincts are. A good man sees by instinct the 
infinite purity and verity of the Divine law. He 
sees by instinct the essential benignity and love- 
ableness of the Father of the Universe. He sees 
by instinct the wonderful adaptedness of the pre- 
cepts of Jesus to promote the best good of the 
world. He sees by instinct the sure and certain 
hope of a life beyond the grave. I repeat it, he 
sees all these by spiritual instincts which a good 
life has opened in the depths of his nature, and 
which nothing but a good life can unseal. He that 
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself. If any man will do His will, he shall know 
of the doctrine whether it be of God. 

I shall conclude this sermon by naming a sug- 
gestive fact which I have never seen in print, and 
which was narrated to me by a venerable friend, 1 
long since deceased, who was present at the time 
referred to, and himself heard the words I am 
about to quote. 

When Dr. Franklin lived in Paris, mv friend 
accompanied him one evening to a club of savans, 
where a discussion arose on the question, What is 
the strongest evidence of the truth of the Christian 
religion? One appealed to prophecy, another to 

1 Benjamin Vaughan, LL. D., born in Jamaica in 1751 ; edu- 
cated in England ; a friend of Dr. Priestley and Dr. Franklin ; 
bearer to London of the treaty of peace, signed in 1783 in 
Paris, between Great Britain and the United States at the close 
of the Revolutionary War ; a member of Parliament in 1792; 
came to America n 1797, and died in Hallowell, Me., in 1835. 



124 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



miracles, a third to the history of the transmission 
of the religion from age to age, and a fourth to 
that incommunicable air of truthfulness and hon- 
esty which lies upon all the records of the life of 
Christ. At length Dr. Franklin's opinion was 
asked. His brief and neat reply was well remem- 
bered: " I think that man has the strongest con- 
viction of its truth who most sincerely obeys its 
words." 



SERMON XII. 



INTROSPECTION. 

" Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt 
not kill ; and whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judg- 
ment : but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his 
brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment: and 
whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the 
council : but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger 
of hell fire." — Matthew v. 21, 22. 

A spiritual vision, purged by holy living, 
soon reveals to us the state of the inner man, and 
forces us to judge it by quite other standards than 
those used by the world. 

The world measures the enormity of sins by 
their outward and visible effect, If we see them 
produce some terrible result under our eyes, we 
are startled and appalled ; but if their work be all 
within, out of sight, we may have no alarm at 
their doings, perhaps even no consciousness of 
their existence, although they may eat tenfold 
deeper into the soul, and imply a tenfold greater 
measure of depravity and guilt. 

Here is the explanation of the text. It may be 
presented in another form in some such words as 
these, which we may suppose Jesus to have used : 
" Your law has told you that murder shall meet 
with a fearful retribution, and it shall ; but I say 



126 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



unto you that guilt is not measured by the outward 
act. In the sight of Him who searches the heart 
the deepest sins may exist, though they lead to no 
outward act. Causeless anger is the very spirit of 
murder, and shall meet with the murderer's doom. 
Habitually to speak or even to think of your 
brother as a worthless creature, coolly to cast him 
off as an apostate wretch, this implies a delibera- 
tion, and settled choice of sin, which may carry its 
guilt far deeper into the soul than the sudden out- 
break of a murderer's passion, and shall be visited 
with a punishment even more terrible than his." 

I do not propose to dwell upon the particular 
examples here named. They were pertinent and 
striking to unfold the principle which Jesus wished 
to set forth, and for this purpose they are perti- 
nent and striking still. But the principle itself is 
what w T e are chiefly concerned with, and we can 
make other applications of it for ourselves. 

And who does not see that this principle carries 
with it very solemn and startling consequences ? 
How it upsets and reverses all judgments formed 
by outward appearances, and teaches us to look 
down beneath all those exterior conformings, and 
fair proprieties, and smooth disguises, which have 
such a goodly show T , and discloses to us, perhaps 
even in what may pass for the best deeds we per- 
form, 1 evil motives, secretly, steadily, and for years 

1 " Nous aurions souvent honte de nos plus belles actions, si le 
monde voyait tous les motifs qui les produissent." — Rochefoucault. 



SERMON XII. 



127 



at work, which, though they may give no visible 
sign of their existence, do yet in the end spread 
more canker and corruption than almost any vio- 
lent act of passion and guilt. 

Who can freely bare his bosom to such a test ? 
who can boldly abide such an inquisition ? Yet 
this is the rule which Jesus sets up, and by which, 
as he has assured us, they who have committed 
no evil act may meet a heavier doom than those 
guilty of deeds before which we stand appalled. 

Yes, and we can partly see even now, short- 
sighted and deceived as we are, how this may be 
true. Acts of violence and crime, though they 
startle and shock us, do not always imply deep 
depravity. They may sometimes plead in exten- 
uation the force of sudden provocation, a fit of 
resistless passion, an impulse of want, of fear, or 
of despair, a strange juncture of temptations too 
great, perhaps, for human weakness to encounter, 
overtaking one hastily, and hardly leaving a mo- 
ment for deliberation and thought. 

And then when the dreadful deed is done, there 
may be a revulsion of moral sensibility, a con- 
sciousness of guilt, a depth of penitence, which 
show that the soul of the wrong-doer is not cor- 
rupt all through. He does not love the act he 
performed. He repudiates and loathes it, and 
would give anything if it could be blotted out. 

I am not speaking the language of a morbid 
sympathy for criminals. Human laws which can- 



128 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



not enter the province of the heart must establish 
rules of conduct regulated solely by deeds done ; 
nor do I think that in this age they err on the side 
of severity ; perhaps the danger is the other way. 
Society whose laws the overtempted and penitent 
criminal has violated, and whose interests he has 
endangered, may scorn him, and imprison him, 
and gibbet him, nor perhaps at present can all 
this be helped. 

But we are looking now to the inner man of 
such a wrong-doer as is here supposed ; and there 
is at least one eye that regards him hopefully, one 
heart that feels for him, one friend that is even 
ready to die for him. It is He who did not break 
the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, and 
who gave words of comfort to the penitent male- 
factor crucified at his side. This sinner may yet 
be brought back to virtue and to heaven. His 
case is not the worst. 

Look to another — the case of a man of very 
decent and fair outward life, but who cherishes 
one evil motive, desire, purpose, of which the fol- 
lowing four things may be said : — 

First, it is a matter of free choice. There is no 
sudden surprise here, no hasty betrayal, no mo- 
mentary impulse ; all this is out of the question. 
It is something of cool deliberation, of conscious 
and habitual preference. 

Secondly, it is a bosom sin, something loved and 
hugged by the soul, something which has become 



SERMON XII. 



129 



its source of happiness, a part of its own life, so that 
you can more easily amputate a limb from the 
man's body, than take that away from his heart. 

Thirdly, it does its work little by little, never to 
startle and alarm, never by any outward act which 
the world would much condemn, or which would 
draw his own thoughts to reflect upon what he is 
about, but deftly fills up its ocean drop by drop, 
and builds up its mountain sand by sand. 

And then, fourthly, it is at its work perpetually, 
steady as the pulses of the heart, busy as thought, 
morning and evening and in the wakeful hours of 
night, through months and years, perhaps from 
earliest manhood to extremest age. 

Can you wonder at anything which that one 
evil motive or plan may do ? In the ultimate ex- 
tent and might of its work, how evident that it 
will vastly exceed and outweigh what any one 
criminal act can effect, more eat out the very life 
of the soul, make it more hardened, leave it less 
likely to be recovered to better things, stamping it 
through and through with deeper guilt, and ex- 
posing it to a heavier doom than may finally be 
laid to many a felon's and murderer's charge. 

It is fearful to think what a small indulgence, 
what a little sin, thus chosen, loved, nursed, and 
through life retained, may do this great thing. In 
the bosom of that man whose outward life is all so 
respectable and comely, there may be a serpent 
coiled around his heart, stealthy, watchful, restless, 

9 



130 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



little by little embracing more in its folds, till in 
the course of years, and at the end of a long life, 
it has the whole man in its power. 

Is there such a serpent at your heart ? Search, 
I pray you, and see. You may have it and never 
once dream it is there. This is the subtle danger 
of a bosom sin, that it never startles you, perhaps 
never once shows itself to your thoughts. Would 
that it did. Would that it might prompt you to 
some act which w r ould arouse your attention, and 
make you aware of your danger, and lead you to 
probe your heart. 

No doubt there are cases where some deed even 
of great atrocity has been the salvation of the 
doer. It has arrested and startled, and awed and 
subdued, and convicted and converted him, when 
but for this he might have gone on little by little, 
and in the end had more sin in his soul though it 
put forth no outward act at all. 

Ah, my friends, those words of Jesus in the 
text put us upon making strange comparisons. I 
am sure that more could be said in defense of the 
man who, in the hour of strong temptation, has 
committed forgery, than could be offered in justi- 
fication of him who is in the habit of slightly 
misrepresenting the truth in little things that may 
turn up to his advantage, and carries that habit 
with him through the whole of his life. 

Who has most sin in his soul, the thief who, 
tempted by rare chances of impunity, hurried on 



SERMON XII. 



131 



by want or despair, or carried away in a moment 
of reckless infatuation, breaks into your house or 
office by night, and seizes your hoarded treasure, 
or the cheater, who in his business will delib- 
erately set about defrauding in little things, and 
do this day after day and year after year, as the 
chosen, loved, systematic, and thriving business of 
his life ? 

The political rival is not assailed with deadly 
weapons ; but is it a less thing than this if he be 
hated with an intensity and malignity of passion 
all the greater for being shut up in the heart, and 
glossed over by the show of outward propriety 
and courtesv ? 

The scholar among his books is safe from the 
snares and perils of the world of traffic — its 
double-dealings, its evasions, its fierce and rude 
struggles for success ; but even the scholar may 
cherish in his retirement a hungry craving for 
fame, till it has eaten out his whole heart, and 
stamped him with as much unmitigated selfishness 
as you can find in the annals of crime. 

You point your finger of scorn to the frail one 
who has fallen from the line of virtue ; but take 
care lest the intensity of that scorn may more 
poison your soul, than one act has tainted the 
heart of the wrong-doer whom you so much con- 
demn. 

Vows of celibacy, immuring men in monkish 
cells, did not extirpate human passions; and they, 



132 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



who outwardly passed for saints, studied the pic- 
tures of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Angels 
in their illuminated Prayer-books, only to kindle 
the flames of lust. 

I yield to no one in my abhorrence of the sin of 
intemperance ; but how much of our zeal against 
this vice springs from the fact that its effects are so 
visible and marked ? Sure I am that this is not 
the worst form of sensualism in this age. There 
is another sin that puts forth no external marks, 
does not palsy the powers of the mind, perhaps 
quickens them, but only to bring them all under a 
more perfect thralldom ; and it has its thousand 
victims where strong drink has one. 

It is the idolatry of wealth, the worship of mam- 
mon, the devotion of everything to gain — that 
intense selfishness, which, indulged, confirmed, and 
hardened as steel through many years, is a death 
and ruin of soul, more general, more appalling, 
more hopeless, than the bodily ruin by strong 
drink. 

" Ye have heard that it was said by them of old 
time thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall 
kill, shall be in danger of the judgment : but I 
say unto you whosoever is angry with his brother, 
without a cause, shall be in danger of the judg- 
ment ; and whosoever shall treat his brother as a 
worthless creature, or shall cast him off as an apos- 
tate wretch, he shall be in danger of hell-fire." 

If we apply the principle that underlies these 



SERMON XII. 



133 



words to our own times, to our own dangers, to 
our own hearts, it must fill us with a just dread. 
God is not misled by these outward shows that so 
much deceive us. The greatest sinners He be- 
holds are not those to whose charge the greatest 
crimes are laid. They may be men who have a 
fair standing in the world, and have put forth their 
hands to no evil acts ; yet the publicans and har- 
lots may enter the kingdom of heaven before 
them. 

Such is the secret and subtle power of sin. And 
until we look deeper than our outward life, until 
we enter the inner chambers of the heart, and see 
what it is that we keep and cherish there, how 
can we tell, though we may stand ever so fair 
before the world, but that our final doom may be 
more awful than that of many whose memories have 
perished through infamy and crime ? Think you 
that these were sinners above all men ? I tell you 
nay. Their one act of guilt, terrible though it 
was, may not so deeply condemn them, as a long, 
careless, self-indulgent life may condemn us. 



SERMON XIII. 



ANODYNES. 

" Yet they say the Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob 
regard it." — Psalm xciv. 7. 

A glimpse of the true state of our hearts may 
lead us to cast about for something to quiet our 
apprehensions ; and the text suggests two ways by 
which men do this. 

One is by supposing that human actions and 
states of feeling are things too small for God to 
see ; the other is by believing them to be, in their 
moral complexion, too indifferent for God to re- 
gard. Thus we grow bold and careless upon the 
presumption either of his oversight or of his indul- 
gence. 

It is the same danger in our relation to the 
Divine parent which, as we all know, exists with 
every youth in his relation to the earthly parent. 
For nothing is more common, and nothing is more 
fatal for a child to say, My father, in his many 
cares, will not see this little offense ; or if he sees 
it, he is too complacent to reprove it. 

We impute to God the imperfections of man, 
and repeat in our maturity the excuses which we 
learned in our youth. 



SERMON XIII. 



135 



It may be of some use to see that these excuses 
are nugatory, founded on misconceptions of God's 
character, allying themselves to some of the most 
fatal weaknesses of our hearts, softening and silen- 
cing the remonstrances of conscience, encourag- 
ing us along a downward path of peril, in which 
we can be arrested only by the considerate and 
careful, strict and stringent conviction, that the 
Lord does see, the God of Jacob does regard it. 

And, in relation to the first point, that God is 
too great to notice small things, ought we not 
rather to say that He notices them because He is 
so great, that to his infinite capacities " no high, 
no low, no great, no small appears," for He com- 
prehends them all alike ; that the terms vast and 
minute have reference only to our way of judging 
things ; and that the child's hope of impunity in 
small offenses springs from the fact that his father 
is not great enough to pay attention to those first 
slight transgressions, which yet may be the most 
serious and momentous of all ? 

Perhaps we all have noticed, in the case of an 
earthly father, that the more vigorous and com- 
prehensive is his mind, and the more tender and 
fervent is his parental affection, the more solicitude 
does he feel to guard against the earliest small be- 
ginnings of disobedience. That is to say, perfec- 
tion in the parental relation is marked, not by any 
disposition to overlook little things, but by a con- 
descension and care which takes even these into 



136 WOMBS OF A FRIEND. 

account, which explains the principle that under- 
lies them, points out the danger of proceeding step 
by step to larger offenses, and thus insists upon 
a degree of attention to the earliest fountains of 
wrong, and a searching watchfulness in regard to 
them, which oftentimes makes a child wonder why 
his father will be so scrupulous and precise. 

And mark the reason for this minute care which 
we, who are parents, have so frequently given to 
our children. How often have we told them, and 
told them truly, that it is no proof that an act is 
of trifling importance because it seems so to them ; 
that the motive with which it is done invests the 
smallest deed with a character of its own ; and that 
the rapidity with which we go from less to greater, 
and the ease with which we slide into habits, 
attach a quite inconceivable interest to the first 
wandering of our feet, the first wavering of our 
will. How often has a wise parent thus tried to 
correct his child's haste, heedlessness, his contempt 
for little things, and to brace his mind up to that 
more watchful virtue which keeps its careful eye 
on every act he performs. 

These considerations which we have so often 
suggested to our children, do we not see with what 
force they apply to ourselves as children of the 
Great Father above ? And when we are tempted 
to feel of some slight act of disobedience, of some 
wrong motive rising within, that this is too little 
for God to notice, let us remember that it is no 



SERMON Xmi 



137 



proof that it is little because it seems so to us. 
Trifling as it may appear, yet regarded as the 
first step of a path that may conduct far astray in 
peril and woe, what interests of years and ages 
may be suspended on that little step ! It is a 
proof of the perfection of the Divine mind, seeing 
all things from the beginning to the end, to notice 
that act with a degree of attention far above what 
we accord to it ; and this may be one of our most 
pressing spiritual needs to brace up our own minds 
to that same vigilant and stringent virtue, which 
will permit no moral act whatever to be beneath 
our regard. 

And, therefore, while there may be something 
almost ludicrous in the contrast between the great- 
ness of God on the one hand, and the insignifi- 
cance of some little deed we perform on the other 
hand, — while we may feel, of a conscious wrong 
we commit in a petty case, that really this is too 
trifling an act for the mighty Sovereign of the uni- 
verse to stoop to notice, — while we feel so, may it 
not be that the absurdity of this contrast is seen 
only at our point of view, that it arises from a de- 
fect in our moral perspective, and that could we 
see this act with the eye of Him who takes in all 
its consequences at a glance, we should perceive 
that no event of our lives was more momentous 
than the deed which, at the time, we regarded as 
too insignificant for any serious thought ? 

Who can doubt that the time will come when 



138 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



we shall look back upon what we have done in 
this world with far different feelings from those 
which we now cherish ; and enlightened bv that 
vision by which w T e shall see even as we are seen, 
how shall we behold a full and broad stream of 
consequences flowing from some small beginning, 
just as on a map we trace back some mighty river 
to an obscure spring on the mountain side. In 
like manner, in that first conscious wrong, we may 
see the fountain of those bitter waters, which, in- 
creasing little by little, became a strong and pre- 
vailing current of life, too mighty for any strength 
we thereafter had to resist, and sweeping on per- 
haps through ages of our existence. 

May we not then feel like exclaiming, How 
could I have been so stupid and insensate ! How 
could I have played around those first fountains of 
evil, and regarded them as too insignificant to 
claim a moment's attention ! As I knew that 
God's inspection extended, like that of a perfect 
father, to mv slightest wandering from right, and 

%/ CD CD CD 1 

that He who numbers the hairs of my head marks 
also the thoughts of my heart, how could I have 
deluded myself with the idea that these things 
were too little for Him to notice, and emboldened 
myself by saying, the Lord shall not see. 

I am sure that the possibility of this self-reproach 
ought to plead with us for a more careful and strict 
attention to duty, even in little things. No points 
in which are involved questions of right and wrong, 



SERMON XIII. 



139 



of innocence and guilt, are too petty for our con- 
siderate thought, since they are not too insignifi- 
cant for the notice even of Almighty God. If by 
no special exercise of his power in each individual 
case, at least by the mysterious laws of our nature, 
every act of disobedience, however slight it may 
be, leaves its marks and scars upon the soul, — 
marks and scars by which He who reads the heart 
may at all times know us, so that there is not a 
thought of our mind " but lo, O God, thou know- 
est it altogether." 

But I turn now to consider the other flattering 
unction we apply to the heart, which is, that if God 
be not too great to notice small things, He is at 
least too indulgent to remember them against us, 
so that if we cannot say the Lord shall not see, we 
may say, the God of Jacob will not regard it. 

Nothing is easier than to speak of the boundless 
goodness of God. Partly through our inability to 
take in the full idea of an infinite being, and partly 
from an instinctive inclination to aggrandize that 
attribute of which we feel we have most need, 
certain it is that the compassion and tenderness of 
God are the grounds of a large reliance ; and to 
hear some persons talk one might suppose that the 
Deity had no other attribute but that of pure 
benevolence. 

And then this benevolence, see how it shows 
itself in the case of an earthly father, distinguished 
for nothing so much as his tenderness and affection, 



140 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



in whom benevolence soon comes to be synony- 
mous with an easy indulgence that encourages 
almost any hope of impunity. After the image of 
such an earthly father as that do men often con- 
struct their idea of the great Father in heaven. 
Their own one-sidedness and weakness they impute 
to God, and in the midst of their transgressions 
they say that He, the tender and indulgent parent, 
the God of Jacob, will not regard them. 

But what right have we to take such freedom ? 
What right to dwell only on one attribute of the 
Divine character, and to make exaggerated rep- 
resentations of that ? What right to forget that 
God's benevolence acts in harmony with his truth 
and justice, with a forethought that regards the 
sinner's ultimate good, with a firmness that can 
steadily inflict suffering until the softening effects 
of punishment are wrought out, and with a holi- 
ness that cannot look on any sin with pleasure ? 

In God's control of this outward world of nature 
may we not see his style of government, if I may 
so call it ; and learn how a being always consistent 
with Himself, will conduct the discipline of the 
moral world also ? 

Let us look to some illustrations. 

God has been benevolent in the adaptation of 
man's physical system to the fair fruits of the 
earth, offered in such rich abundance for food. 
Suppose one should say, God will not punish so 
small a thing as a change in my diet, and I will 



SERMON XIII. 



141 



feed on poison. Is it with an easy indulgence that 
this act is met? Does the Divine benevolence 
intervene to work a miracle in man's nature, to 
adapt it to this new food, and to save it from ap- 
proaching suffering and death ? These conse- 
quences, coming with unerring certainty, prove 
that God has laws which He will have respected, 
and has firmness enough to hold the transgressor 
to a punishment, endured to the last moment of 
his chosen and persistent folly. 

Again, God has kindly instituted certain rela- 
tions betw r een the density of our bodies and that 
of the earth ; but suppose one should say, " God 
will not notice so trifling a thing as my throwing 
myself from this tower," and with these words 
casts himself headlong below. Is the law of grav- 
itation suspended in his behalf? Is he arrested 
midway in his fall ? Does he alight so easily that 
not one of his bones is broken, — -not one of his 
muscles bruised ? Quite on the other hand, either 
instant death, or years of suffering, proves that 
the Divine laws cannot be trifled w r ith, and that 
their Administrator has firmness enough to hold the 
infatuated offender to his just punishment, though 
it wrings out to him an inconceivable amount of 
suffering and woe. 

It is by such comparisons as these that we may 
see what I have called the style of God's govern- 
ment, and may understand that, gentle, tender, 
compassionate, indulgent, as the Infinite Father 



142 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



may be, none of these names, nor all of them, 
describe the whole of his character. He has other 
attributes, too, — - truth, justice, holiness, firmness ; 
and if such be his discipline in temporary, per- 
ishing things, can we think it will be less consist- 
ent, less firm, in the interests of the soul ? 

And so, finally, the truth is, we may as well ex- 
pect health and long life if we feed on poison, as 
expect the least indulgence to violations of God's 
moral will. Throw yourself from a precipice and 
meet no harm, and then you may palter with 
guilt and meet no retribution. In the very laws 
of our nature God has linked sin and sorrow to- 
gether, and we have neither the power to repeal 
those laws, nor the art to evade them. It may be 
for the moment a soothing anodyne to the soul, 
but is it not trifling with death and eternity to say, 
" The Lord shall not see, the God of Jacob shall 
not regard it." ' 



SERMON XIV. 



vows. 

" I will pay my vows unto the Lord." — Ps. cxvi. 14. 

Among the many rites which the Roman Cath- 
olic Church borrowed from the old pagan worship, 
was that of presenting votive offerings to places 
consecrated to devotion. 

If at any time before the birth of Christ one 
entered a pagan temple, at Athens or Rome, he 
saw not only the image before which the devout 
prostrated themselves, and the smoke of the in- 
cense ascending in clouds before it, but all around 
the shrine he would observe the gifts of these wor- 
shippers, some laid at the feet of the idol, some 
hanging on the wall at its side. Wreaths of flow- 
ers, little bronze or silver images, jewels, statues, 
pictures, were the offerings, varying according to 
the means and taste of the giver. 

You know what idea was at the bottom of all 
this. It was part of a worship which throughout 
had an object of sense to represent an emotion of 
the heart. Men then had not abstract terms, nor 
abstract ideas. They were in such bondage to 
materialism that they must have something which 



144 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



they could see and handle to stand for everything 
they felt ; and the invisible idea was made a real- 
ity only through its visible representative. 

Thus God was a reality only by means of the 
idol. The ascent of prayers to heaven was a real- 
ity only by means of the incense. Holy resolu- 
tions were realities only by means of the votive 
offerings. 

In the childhood of our race these outward ob- 
jects w r ere precisely what a little girl's doll, or a 
little boy's toy-horse, is to childhood still, giving 
an objective reality to rising feelings incapable as 
yet of being abstractly grasped and stated. Idol- 
atry had its necessary place, its beneficent uses ; 
and as long as men are incapable of anything bet- 
ter we should excuse it in them, as God excused 
it, for, as St. Paul said in his speech at Athens, 
" the times of this ignorance God winked at." 

The Roman Catholic Church adopted a great 
many of these pagan forms; or rather it would 
be a better statement to say that these pagan forms 
survived, and adapted themselves to Christian 
usage. Who can think this was strange ? The 
i great body of the first converts to Christianity 
were as ignorant as their heathen ancestors. They 
were equally incapable of abstract ideas. They 
just as much needed an object of sense to express 
a feeling of the heart. Hence the Roman Catho- 
lic Church had images to verify the idea of spiritual 
beings, and incense to verify the ascent of prayers, 



SERMON XIV. 



145 



and votive offerings to verify holy resolutions and 
vows. 

Votive offerings are not so common in the wor- 
ship of that Church at the present day, as the 
other things I have named ; but in the older and 
less educated countries of that communion one 
will find these offerings still presented. All through 
Italy, in the great cathedrals, at the tombs of re- 
nowned men, at the shrines of saints, before the 
image of the Virgin, you may see thousands of 
these gifts, marking some solemn event or crisis 
in the giver's life. A wreath of evergreen, a 
silver cross, a silver heart, a crucifix, a burning 
lamp, are the most common ; while a chapel, re- 
splendent with gold and marble, or a costly statue, 
or a magnificent painting, attest the devotion of 
the more wealthy. 

Consider the meaning of these objects. Each 
is the witness of a vow. A solemn resolution has 
been formed in some thoughtful hour, and its me- 
morial is there in the church. It gives an objec- 
tive reality to that inward purpose. There is the 
record, the witness, and monument of it. Every 
time the giver enters the church his eye is attracted 
to it, and the saint to whom the votive offering is 
given is himself made, as it were, a party to this 
solemn transaction of the soul. It is the language 
of a symbol ; it is a record by a fact ; it is the will 
expressed by a deed. 

It is easy to curl the lip of scorn, and to pro- 
10 



146 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



nounce all these votive offerings the fruit of super- 
stition ; but a thoughtful man will be more dis- 
posed to see in each one of them the hint of some 
burning and bleeding heart in a solemn hour it 
has met, and of some blessing, perchance, which a 
holy resolution has brought to the soul. 

But we live in times very different from those 
old pagan, and from later semi-Christianized days. 
We have dispensed with the language of symbols. 
We do not need objects of sense to enable us to 
grasp ideas. We can seize hold of ideas directly, 
and keep hold of them, and make them present 
and living realities, without the intervention of 
visible representations. So at least we say. 

We enter the place of worship. There is no im- 
age there of the God we adore. We can see Him 
in our minds. We think it would be degrading 
and sensualizing the image of Him stamped on 
our souls were we to give it any outward repre- 
sentation. So we say. But who does not see 
that if to us the church be but an empty space, a 
hollow shrine, if there be to us no God there, no 
majestic and Divine presence before which the soul 
bows, then we are not so true and devout wor- 
shippers as those who knelt sincerely before the 
idol which their hands had carved. 

No smoke of incense ascends to the arches of 
this church. We do not need the sight of it. We 
can grasp the idea of prayer without this symbol. 
We can believe that the emotions and longings of 



SERMON XIV. 



147 



the soul go up to God, if no ascending vision ap- 
peals to the eye. So we say. But who does not 
see that if our prayers are only words, words that 
bear up nothing, no faith, no gratitude, no aspira- 
tion, then we are not so true worshippers as those 
ignorant and simple men whose souls were lifted 
up on the curling clouds of incense. 

So likewise we have no votive offerings. We do 
not need any such outward symbols and memorials. 
With us a vow can be wholly mental. We can 
call God to witness our heart and our will without 
any visible sign of these inward acts. So we say. 
But who does not see that if there be no holy res- 
olution at all, if we pass solemn events and serious 
crises without any settled purpose, without any 
sacred vow, then we are not so true to our souls 
as were those simple-minded worshippers who 
hung up a sprig of evergreen, or lighted a bit of 
candle, as an expression and memorial of their 
will. 

" I will pay my vows unto the Lord*" said the 
Psalmist in the words of my text. The explana- 
tion I have given of these words has been to lit- 
tle purpose if we do not see that the main thing is 
to have a holy resolution, a fixed purpose of the 
will, a sacred, solemn vow. The form it takes is 
of little consequence, whether attested by an out- 
ward symbol, or known only in the deep places of 
the heart. But all through the Bible, all through 
pagan and Christian experience, all through the 



148 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



lives of good men, all the world over, and in all 
ages, we find proofs of the necessity of marking the 
thoughtful hours of our life by holy resolves. 

Apart from this testimony, do we not ourselves 
see the high uses which our vows may subserve ? 
Let us name some of these uses. 

There are solemn hours that come to us all. A 
quickened vision of our inner man, the recurrence 
of a birthday, recovery from a sickness, the an- 
niversary of a death, the beginning of a new year, 
the meeting of old friends the sight of whom tells 
us how fast our life is passing away, — such are 
some of these hours. At these times we seem to 
see clearer who and where we are. The lulling 
dream of life is for a moment broken. An un- 
wonted light, as if from some celestial opening, 
shines down about us. If it be but for a moment, 
who does not know that it is a precious moment, 
and may have more influence upon our career than 
months, perhaps years, of our ordinary experience. 
A holy resolve seizes the wisdom of that moment, 
fixes it in shape, turns it to account, and enables 
us to carry the light, caught on the topmost hills, 
down into all the valleys and lanes in which we 
must walk. Who can doubt that it was in some 
such crisis that the Psalmist said, " I will pay my 
vows unto the Lord ? " 

Again, if we reflect a moment I think we shall 
be surprised to see how much our life is shaped by 
sheer accidents. We float with the current. The 



SERMON XIV. 149 

daily turning up of events, our feelings at the 
time, the little grooves in our inclinations which 
habits have formed, the wishes and caprices of 
others, what we find easiest and pleasantest to do 
when the case comes, — such are the petty things 
that shape our course. A holy resolution, wisely 
formed and by God's grace faithfully kept, is like 
seizing the helm of the ship, which is no longer 
the sport of chance currents and waves, but is 
'now directed by the great purposes of the voyage, 
and by the stars of heaven. Did not the patriarch 
see this when he said, " I will pay my vows unto 
the Lord ? " 

Moreover, it is not the least recommendation of 
the habit of forming solemn resolves that it serves 
to educate the will. How defective is any system 
of self -training if, while it provides for the culture 
of the judgment, the memory, the attention, the 
affections, it leaves out the very essence of person- 
ality, the will, which most makes and marks the 
man. The reason why great men have so often 
risen from humble circumstances is that these cir- 
cumstances forced them to educate the will ; and 
here too is the reason w T hy we commonly find fail- 
ure with those who, brought up in the lap of easel 
and self-indulgence, have subjected their w r ill to 
no discipline. 

Hence the Roman Catholic Church has insisted 
so much, and with a w T isdom which we do not 
always appreciate, upon the practice of fasts, and 



150 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



mortifications, and penances. We perhaps see no 
merit in living on a crust of brown bread, or wear- 
ing a hair shirt ; nor is there any use in these 
things considered in themselves. But the power 
over one's will hereby gained is of the very high- 
est worth ; and it is that power which Jesus re- 
ferred to, and sought to secure, when he said that 
whosoever will come after him must deny himself 
and take up his cross. 

Power over your will, to have force in yourself, 
to be able to do what you know to be right, to 
fashion yourself and not be fashioned, chameleon- 
like, by everything that surrounds you — this is 
w r hat will be given you by forming and keeping 
holy resolutions ; and for this also the Psalmist 
said, " I will pay my vows unto the Lord." 

And, finally, he said it for another object, that 
he might have a plan for his life. What is a vow 
but — as far as it goes — a plan of life ? 

But how few of us have a plan of life ? We 
have plans for everything else. If you would 
build a house you have a plan. If you would lay 
out your grounds you have a plan. If you would 
make a machine, or cut out a garment, or start on 
a journey, you have a plan. How can it be that 
in the greatest of all concerns, that of our life, we 
can reach any high end if we live only at hap- 
hazard, and to secure the result for which every- 
thing else was given us, we have no plan ? Let 
us ponder these things, and pay our vows unto 
the Lord. 



SERMON XV. 



STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS. 
" When I am weak then am I strong." — 2 Cor. xii. 10. 

We often express great truths in the form of a 
paradox. Thus we say we are never less alone 
than when alone ; that the wisest man is he who 
knows that he knows nothing ; that the carnal 
minded man is dead while he lives. In all these 
cases we detect at once the truth intended, and the 
form of expression acts as a mental stimulus. 

The inspiration of the sacred writers, whatever 
it was, did not lift them out of their own modes 
of utterance. It left them free to choose their 
figures of speech ; and therefore they sometimes 
expressed themselves in the form referred to, as it 
is natural and suggestive. 

But suggestive of what ? Is there a communi- 
cation between our souls and the Soul of our souls ? 
Is there an omnipotent Parent mind behind our 
finite intelligence ? Is there a helping Spirit ready 
to flow into our hearts when we unbar the doors 
to let it in ? Is there an Almighty Strength to 
supplement our weakness ? 

But why can we have that strength only when 



152 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



we are weak ? Because in all cases we seek aid 
aright only when we feel that we need it. It is 
this sense of need that not only makes us long 
for help, but makes us susceptible of receiving it. 
Our trust in our own wisdom and strength, shuts 
out that Good Spirit that comes only into the 
lowly and broken heart. 

Thus it is literally true that when we are weak 
in ourselves, then are we strong in God. When 
we knock away the props of self-help, then we feel 
the almighty props of God's help. When we come 
renouncing our own will, and lie before Him, say- 
ing, u Do Lord with me as seemeth good in thy 
sight/' then He takes us up, bleeding and broken 
though we may be, and puts his own infinite and 
omnipotent grace into us. 

Come and tell me, my Christian friend, have 
you not found it so ? I will answer for you, happy 
if I can here and there drop my little plummet 
into depths of spiritual experience, where you have 
found a strength which was not your own, and 
have felt a peace that the world knoweth not of. 

Who has not at times found himself environed 
with perplexities that have baffled his struggles to 
see his way clear ? Turn where we will, our path 
is hedged in with difficulties. We seek the advice 
of friends, but their counsels are contradictory. 
We consult the lights of experience, but they are 
like lanterns in the stern of a ship that cast no ray 
on the breakers ahead. We try the strength of 



SERMON XV. 



153 



our logic, which is so good to justify steps already 
taken, but who ever knew it to discover the right 
way ? We look to our common sense, the great 
instincts of the right and the good, but how do we 
know that some interested bias has not deflected 
them all, and, like an unknown current at sea, is 
bearing us awav from our true course ? We feel 
helpless, and yet the exigency is pressing, and we 
must decide. 

In that utter irresolution and weakness, you 
have gone into your closet, and lifted up your soul 
to Him who seeth in secret, and, conscious of your 
need of guidance, have asked light and strength. 
The sense of his presence has awed all self-inter- 
est and self-trust. That personal abnegation has 
opened your soul to a wisdom from above. A light 
has broke in upon your mind. The way is 
smoothed before you. Difficulties vanish. You 
come to a decision and go on in a strength of safety 
and success. You experience the fulfillment of 
the words that a good man's ways are ordered by 
the Lord. " The meek He will guide in judg- 
ment ; the meek He will teach his way ; " and so it 
is that when you are weak then are you strong. 

Perhaps you have had some trying duty to per- 
form, some office to discharge, some service to ren- 
der, that will expose you to the obloquy of friends, 
to the spite of enemies ; something which comes 
athwart all your cherished feelings, and requires 
of you a power of will which you think it is im- 



154 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



possible for you to command. The duty, the sum- 
mons stands before you, and you must meet it, 
though it seems as if you can as soon lift up a 
mountain, and cast it into the sea. 

In that sense of your weakness you seek Him 
whose strength is made perfect in your weakness ; 
and how can you describe that new spirit that 
takes possession of you, that fortitude, that cour- 
age, that determination to bear up under any- 
thing, except by exclaiming, ** 1 can do all things 
through Him who strengthened me. And yet not 
I, but the grace of God that is in me ; for when 
I am weak, then am I strong." 

Perhaps the currents of your religious life have 
run low. You do not take that satisfaction in 
spiritual things which you have felt. You are 
sliding down on an inclined plane of a mere out- 
ward and worldly life, and are losing the fervor of 
a walk with God, and of a conversation which is 
in heaven. You sit down to think upon your 
state. It fills you with dread. And yet you ask, 
How can I help it ? How can I command the airs 
of heaven to swell the sails of my idle bark ? How 
can I send through my soul that life which alone 
can meet my wants, and without which I feed on 
husks ? 

In that emptiness and poverty you think of the 
words, " Blessed are the poor in spirit," that is, 
they who have a sense of their inward poverty, 
" for they shall be filled." You intercede for that 



SERMON XV. 



155 



spirit that helpeth our infirmities. In your reli- 
ance on that grace which is sufficient for you, you 
are lifted up to a higher plane, and breathe a 
higher life. God comes to you, and dwells in you, 
and you in Him ; and so you find again, that when 
you are weak, then are you strong. 

Perhaps you are called to meet the loss by death 
of those you most fondly love. The separation 
is before you. The sands of life are fast running 
out, and you must bid adieu to father or mother, 
to brother or sister, to husband or wife. You feel 
as if it is too much for you to bear, that your heart 
will be crushed under this heavy load, and in your 
agony you ask, Where can I find my stay and 
support ? 

Ah, in that sense of the need of a stay and sup- 
port comes the only true succor. It leads to Him 
who has said that your strength shall be propor- 
tioned to your day, " When you pass through the 
waters I will be with you, and the floods shall not 
overwhelm you." You have met the trial with a 
peace that has surprised yourself, because when 
you are weak, then you are strong. 

I am sure that you needed not these illustrations 
to show the essential truth implied in the text, 
that man finds his wisdom and strength only in 
recognizing and reverencing a power mightier than 
himself. It is so even with inferior animals. Nat- 
uralists have observed how much they are im- 
proved by their domesticity with man if they look 



156 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



up to him as a protector and benefactor. 1 It was 
the recommendation of a wise man that we should 
choose a friend from a family where has lived one 
whom all have reverenced ; for it is in this atti- 
tude of humility and respect that sweet and holy 
virtues find their best nutriment. And how much 
such an attitude influences the growth of the mind, 
also, may be seen by one historical parallel. 

A hundred years ago there lived in France a 
philosopher, renowned for learning and wit, who, 
in his self-sufficiency, thought he had seen quite 
through the designs of Jesus of Nazareth. " Crush 
the wretch," was his impious expression ; while he 
predicted that in fifty years Christian truths and 
influences would disappear from the world. I name 
these facts merely to show, on one point at least, 
the preoccupation and imbecility of his mind. 

Contemporaneous with him was an English phi- 
losopher, of vast reach of intellect, humbly explor- 
ing the laws of Nature, feeling, as he expressed 
himself, that he was a child walking on the shore 
of a boundless ocean, who had picked up one lit- 
tle pebble, and even that could not fully compre- 
hend. 

1 " Take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and 
courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a 
man, who to him is instead of a god or melior natura. Which 
courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confi- 
dence in a better nature than his own, could never attain. So 
man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon Divine protec- 
tion and favor, gathered] a peace and faith which human nature 
in itself could not obtain." — Lord Bacon. 



SERMON XV. 



157 



Who doubts which of these two men, Voltaire 
or Sir Isaac Newton, stood in the attitude of great- 
ness and success ? Who doubts which mind the 
Spirit of all wisdom and truth would enter, and 
feed with grand thoughts, and make it the vehicle 
of a divine illumination, and consecrate it to be a 
light and a blessing to the world ? 

If from science w 7 e turn to poetry, we see the 
same point we are now considering. What strains 
might Byron have sung had he looked up to some- 
thing higher than his own morbid self? Byron's 
career is explained by another great master of 
song, the hiding of whose power was in his per- 
ception of the truth that greatness comes from 
humble reverence, and who said, — 

" Unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how mean is man ! " 

So of poets long before Wordsworth or Byron. 
Who doubts where the inspiration of Milton or 
Dante came from, and does not see that it was 
from near visions of something infinite and holy, 
abasing to nothingness their own personality, but 
at the same time lifting them up to heights where 
mortals never before or since have trod ? 

In the world of art we find illustrations of the 
same point. I am not one of those who exalt what 
are called the Ages of Faith, believing those bet- 
ter than the times in which we live. And yet our 
age, in its wonderful material development and 
prosperity, has almost deified man, as if his arm 



158 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



and strength have wrought out all this success. 
How our natures are impoverished, deprived of 
those sublime conceptions of God which lift up 
and inspire the soul, which reared the sublime ca- 
thedrals that modern art can only copy but cannot 
equal, and which gave to the marble and canvas 
forms of beauty that have been for ages the unap- 
proached types of excellence. Some of the tem- 
ples, paintings, and statues of former days are in 
art what the bones of the mastodon and mega- 
therium are in paleontology — proofs of the ex- 
istence of a race compared with which we now 
see only pigmies. 

I suppose I express the feelings of most visitors 
to Rome when I refer so sorrowfully to the general 
state of modern art, to its stale repetition of old 
conceptions and forms, to its want of freshness and 
originality, its lack of lofty visions of beauty and 
inspiration. And who does not know the reason? 
It is the religious element alone, the soul upturned 
to the Infinite, that stamps art with immortality. 
Art is not religious because produced in a Chris- 
tian age, nor as an expression of a so-called relig- 
ious object. It is the tone of mind of the artist 
that gives the crowning perfection ; and when we 
read that Phidias began his daily labors with an 
offering to the gods, and gave such a deeply relig- 
ious impress to his works that it was said he must 
have visited heaven and seen the gods themselves, 
we find the explanation both of his renowned sue- 



SERMON XV. 



159 



cess, and of so many failures in an age of hollow 
unbeliefs. A new day for art will come only when 
a new tide of religious life shall again lift up 
the hearts of the world, and we shall look God- 
ward and npt man ward, and, emptied of our imita- 
tions and conceits, we shall be filled with a new 
sense of God's infinite beauty and love. 

Nor must I omit to allude to the confirmations 
of my subject suggested by the lives of inspired 
men. What enabled Abraham and Moses to do 
deeds that have floated down to us over the waves 
of three thousand years, and which will never die 
out from the records of man, if not because, though 
feeble in themselves, they walked with God, and 
had his Almighty Spirit within them, and his 
Almighty arm at their side ? Where did David and 
Isaiah drink in the inspiration that has embalmed 
their words in the undying affections of mankind, 
if not at " Siloa's brook that flowed fast by the 
oracle of God?" The goodly fellowship of the 
apostles, the noble army of the martyrs, why were 
they, who were the sport of every power of the 
world, superior to all, if not because " greater was 
He that was with them than he that was with the 
world?" 

I have been lately on that famed Appian Way, 
in Rome, along which St. Paul went as he entered 
that city where he wrote the words of the text. 
I tried to imagine the look of disdainful strength 
which he cast upon all the proud works which 



160 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



then adorned the capital of the world. Why did 
he feel so ? Because he knew that though help- 
less himself, and treated as the ofFscouring of the 
earth, God had chosen weak things to confound 
the things that are mighty, and things that are not 
to put to naught the things that are, and the words 
of Paul the prisoner would endure long after all 
the power of the Caesars had crumbled to ruin. 

How often in the history of the world it seems 
as if that good Spirit that helps our infirmities loves 
not what are called the great places and the great 
men of the times, but " before all temples prefers 
the upright heart and pure," amid the trials of 
private life. What illumination it gave to the 
humble home of Bethany, and to the woman of 
Samaria at the well, but had no revelation to make 
to the proud priests at Jerusalem, decked out in 
their costly robes and sparkling Urim and Thum- 
mim. 

We have just received accounts of the opening 
of the great Council of the Romish Church, when 
a thousand mitred prelates, in splendid vestments, 
led by the Pope, effulgent in gold, filed in long 
procession beneath the lofty arches of St. Peter's. 
I am sure I hope they will have the Spirit of God 
given them, for they must need it in the mighty 
crisis on which their Church has fallen, — that 
Church which " has reversed the deed of Christ ; 
for as he vivified a stone into the Apostleship, so 



SERMON XV. 



161 



this has petrified the Apostleship into a stone of 
stumbling." 1 

But it would be like other facts in the history of 
man if that Spirit should be repelled rather than 
invited by all those gorgeous ceremonies, and 
meanwhile be ministering its heavenly illumina- 
tion and strength in ten thousand homes of want 
and sorrow^: to some humble and devout thinker 
in his wretched garret ; to the impoverished father, 
struggling cheerily to support a large dependent 
family ; to the poor seamstress plying her needle 
day and night, in gentle patience and faith, to 
lift the burden of debt from aged parents, or to 
smooth their passage to the grave. 

To each one of us, however lowly and suffering 
our lot may be i is that help offered. And the ex- 
hortation of our subject comes to us in the words 
of the familiar hymn : — 

Man's wisdom is to seek 

His strength in God alone ; 
And e'en an angel would be weak 

That trusted in his own. 

Live close to Him. Have the great thought of 
Him to awe to humility, and at the same time 
to inspire with might. Make that resource yours 
by a life of prayer. Fill your urns at that inex- 
haustible fountain of living waters, and thus be 
able to say in doubt and trouble, in perplexity and 
sorrow, on a sick bed and in the hour of death, — 
When I am weak then am I strong. 

1 Ruskin. 

11 



SERMON XVI. 



LIFE. 

" Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity." 

Eccles. xii. 8. 

If we turn to the history of Solomon, the au- 
thor of these words, we shall see what were his 
expectations of human life. Let us read a few 
lines from his autobiography : " I made me great 
works ; I builded me houses ; I planted me vine- 
yards ; I made me gardens and orchards ; I got 
me servants and maidens ; I got me men singers 
and women singers ; I gathered me silver and 
gold ; I sought in my heart to give myself unto 
wine ; I said I will prove thee with mirth and 
pleasure. But the wise man dieth as the fool. 
All are of the dust. Therefore I hated all my 
labor because I should leave it unto the man that 
should be after me. Vanity of vanities, all is 
vanity." 

A deathless and sensual paradise was what Sol- 
omon wanted. It is not strange that with such 
expectations the world was vanity to him, nor that 
the world will be vanity to every one that is like 
him. And who can regret that it should be ? 

But what we must regret is that it is so often 



SERMON XVI. 



163 



thought that this lamentation of the text ought to 
he accepted by all ; — as if the example of Solo- 
mon was not given for our warning ; as if God 
can be pleased by the perpetual confession of our 
disappointment and complaint ; as if it were not 
impiety to despise or disparage the condition 
which God judges best for us, and sullen ingrati- 
tude to be always whimpering and mourning that 
life is not different from what it is. 

So far as Solomon is concerned something may 
be said in extenuation of his view of the case. 
He lived before immortality had been brought to 
light in the Gospel. In all his writings there is 
not, I believe, a single hint of a future state. His 
sad complaint of the vanity of life seems like a 
blind longing for something better ; the protest of 
a great nature dimly conscious of wants and as- 
pirations which cannot be satisfied, and in com- 
parison with which the best gifts of time and sense 
seemed contemptible. That outlook 1 of disappoint- 
ment and almost of scorn which he cast over the 
world is excusable in him. His words have a mel- 
ancholy cadence not unsuited to the time in which 
his lot was cast. 

But we who are Christians, to whom a continued 
and unending life has been revealed, can we do 
nothing but repeat those Old Testament dirges ? 
Ought not our words to be set to the music of 
hope and joy ? 

The three circumstances, which perhaps more 



164 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



than all others prompt the exclamation of the text, 
are, the brevity of human life, the instability of hu- 
man possessions, and the unsatisfactoriness of hu- 
man enjoyments. Let us look at each of these 
from a Christian stand-point, and see if it be right 
that they should reflect upon life an appear- 
ance of vanity. 

First, the brevity of human life. No doubt it 
would seem short were it four or five times longer 
than it is, because any fixed period must appear 
brief in contrast with that indefinite duration of 
which we so easily conceive. To the divine mind, 
as we are told, a thousand years are as one day ; 
and were we, in a prolonged earthly existence, 
habituated to measure extended periods of time, 
they might seem so to us. We are to look at the 
duration of life, not through our imagination, but 
in the light of those probable reasons which have 
fixed the bounds of our habitation on earth. 

Is life long enough considered with reference to 
the divine plan of introducing upon the stage of 
existence the greatest possible number of genera- 
tions ? Is life long enough as the primary school 
of humanity ? Is life long enough to include as 
many duties and responsibilities as any thoughtful 
man would have intrusted to his. charge ? 

If we cannot answer these questions, they may 
at least suggest some higher relations of the sub- 
ject, and show that life is to be measured by some- 
thing else than mere duration. 



SERMON XVI. 



165 



I was reading not long since the life of one of 
the English poets of the last generation, a pure 
and noble name in English literature, whose biog- 
rapher had visited the old IJall, the scene of his 
literary labors, and who says, to quote the writer's 
words: " What an impression it gave me of the 
vanity of human life to walk through apartments 
which for forty years had been cheered by his 
genius, and find his place occupied by strangers." 

It might be unfair to criticize words so inciden- 
tally used, adopted as they probably were without 
thought, as one of the modes of expression so fre- 
quently quoted from the Bible. And yet this is 
precisely the thing to be blamed, that we unthink- 
ingly repeat from mouth to mouth what is neither 
just nor true. Forty years of a pure and useful 
life to awaken associations of vanity ! The gentle 
duties there discharged, the holy hopes there in- 
spired, the undying affections there confirmed for 
forty years, were these to be called to mind as 
vanity ? Or is it vanity that he, the subject of all 
these, is now taken up into a higher school, and 
others are coming, in indefinite successions of forty 
years, to have the same precious seed-time of en- 
joyment and opportunity ? 

Say what we will, such language, if it means 
anything, is morbid and mawkish ; and instead of 
an impression of vanity, there should have been 
awakened in the place referred to, thoughts of the 
reality and blessedness of human life and hopes. 



166 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Perhaps the strangest thing is that these con- 
temptuous allusions to life should be thought to be 
peculiarly devout and Christian. And yet, after 
all, this is not mone unaccountable than other 
things which have sought the shelter of those 
names. Men have believed that all life in the body 
is through the agency of some demoniac power, 
to be subdued only by mutilating and scourging. 
They have held that the merciful appointment of 
death is a penal infliction for the sin of the first 
parents of our race. Indeed, it is in harmony with 
these views that men aggrandize expressions that 
give us low and mean thoughts of the duration 
and significance of this present life. 

But how can we repeat such expressions in the 
presence of Him who took upon himself our na- 
ture as if on purpose to show us what a holy and 
blessed thing may be even a few years of earthly 
existence ; who for a little while held the dear rela- 
tions of this world to give us an idea how precious 
they may become ; whose teachings invest with 
high associations the opportunities and trusts of 
our earthly lot ; and who reveals to us how benig- 
nant is that voice, heard when it may be, which 
says to us, " Come up higher " ? 

In the second place, there is the instability of hu- 
man possessions, that continual fluctuation alluded 
to by the expression of the Liturgy which laments 
that we are " never in one stay," and under which 
he who to-day feels that his mountain stands firm 



SERMON XVI. 



167 



and shall never be moved, may to-morrow find all 
his glittering hopes dashed to the dust. Should 
this inspire the feeling of vanity ? 

Doubtless we can all conceive of a condition 
less mutable, in which human calculation should 
not be so frequently at fault, and plans frustrated, 
and ties broken off, and possessions lost, a condi- 
tion in which life should wear a more tranquil and 
assured aspect ; and the complaint may easily arise 
by the contrast between the billows on which we 
are tossed and the calm peace of that ideal repose. 

Still the question remains, Do we here apply to 
life the right test ? By what is its character to be 
judged, — by its conformity to what we may desire, 
or its conformity to what we may need ? And if 
we see inactivity and rust corrupt those whose lot 
is most unchanged ; if we know that we all require 
a motive to watchfulness, and a spur to put us up 
to our best exertions, so that perhaps of all ar- 
rangements of the world it is this insecurity which 
most develops and intensifies life ; with what justice 
may we call that aspect of our condition empty 
and delusive, in which the wisdom and benignity 
of God are so clearly seen ? 

As a part, moreover, of our religious discipline, 
who can fail to see how much is contributed by 
that uncertainty and instability to which we refer, 
how much it breaks up a worldly confidence which 
is the slumber of the soul, how much it leads us 
to feel our dependence on a divine power, how 



168 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



much it forces us to find our true repose not on the 
broken and breaking reeds of the world, but in 
the unshaken and unshaking trust of the soul ? 
" In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but be 
of good cheer, I have overcome the world ; " and 
where can the soul's good cheer be found but by 
a like victory over change and trial. 

These words of Jesus show that it is possible, 
amid all the mutabilities of the world, to have good 
cheer ; nor is there anything in which his followers 
have been more false to him than in not obeying 
this injunction. The things which are designed to 
strengthen our faith and courage, ought we to call 
them vanity ? Rather are they not our needed and 
beneficent teachers ? Well indeed might an un- 
changing world be called vanity of vanities if it 
lulled us to sleep, or made us blind to our true 
peace and joy. 

We come then to the third thing named as some- 
times prompting the exclamation of the text, which 
is the unsatisfactoriness of all earthly enjoyments ; 
for no one of them, as all human experience bears 
witness, perfectly fills our capacity of joy. Even 
our highest satisfactions leave a void from which 
comes the echo that elsewhere there is something 
deeper and better than they ; while as to far the 
larger part of our pleasures we feel that they are 
not worthy to be compared with that perfect felicity 
of which we can conceive. 

Perfect felicity ! This then is our standard of 



SERMON XVI. 



169 



judgment, as if the condition of this world, or the 
nature of man, were intended to yield such a thing. 
It is true, we form a conception of it, and that 
conception is one of the noblest prophecies we 
have ; it is a proof that this world is not an end in 
itself ; it is something that shows our adaptedness 
to a higher life than this, just as the wing of the 
unfledged bird shows that its organization fits it to 

fly- 

But why condemn the present because it does 
not bring that which is possible only in the future ? 
Least of all, why speak disdainfully of a thousand 
lowly satisfactions, proofs of God's goodness, and 
calls to our gratitude, although they may fall far 
short of a standard which we have no right to ap- 
ply to the things of this world ? How evident that 
the degree of unsatisfactoriness will be measured 
by the degree of our expectations, and that there- 
fore a confession that the world is vanity is a ver- 
dict against ourselves ? 

Finally, we may see that the chief reason why 
we say " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," is, that 
God has made our nature larger than the world. 
It is through the greatness of what we conceive 
that we learn to underrate what we have. No 
prolonging of life, no greater security in our state, 
no intenser satisfaction in our enjoyments, can pre- 
vent this, because we have aspirations and hopes 
which nothing short of infinity can fill. 

It is an easy thing and a cheap thing to find 



170 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



fault, to send out a look of disappointment and 
contempt like that scowl of the preacher of old 
which has been seen by a hundred generations ; 
but this, wise man though he was called, was not 
wise in him, nor will it be grateful and Christian 
in us. Rather would we learn to circumscribe our 
expectations within the limits of our condition, and 
thankfully use the present world as not abusing 
it, — its endeared ties, its holy duties, its precious 
trusts, assured that a cheerful faithfulness in that 
which is least w T ill be our best preparation for that 
which is much. 



SERMON XVII. 



THE ANCHOR. 

u Which hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and stead- 
fast." — Hebrews vi. 19. 

No mariner puts off all thoughts of his anchor 
till the storm comes. What a time to begin to 
provide that on a lee shore, amid the howling tem- 
pest, and when all will go to pieces at the first 
touch of the rocks ! Forged before the voyage 
began, placed in the forepart of the ship, never 
permitted to be overlaid or entangled by other 
things, kept always under the eye, and ready for 
any emergency, the anchor is a first necessity, and 
the navigator that neglects it would be called 
insane. 

The similitude of the text warrants a use ,of 
these facts to illustrate spiritual things. The hope 
of a continued and unending life is an anchor to 
the soul. We see that it was forged for man be- 
fore he began the voyage of life, in this instinctive 
looking for another scene of being, in the univer- 
sal conviction of the present incompleteness of the 
moral government of the world, in the innate con- 
sciousness of capacities which, for their full devel- 



172 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



opment, demand a longer term of existence than 
that assigned on earth. 

But how differently we may treat it ! It may 
be overlooked, out of place, covered up by the 
goods we are carrying along with us, and so in- 
capable of use in the perils we at any time may 
meet ; or it may be placed, where it belongs, in 
the foremost part of our plans, kept under our 
eye, unincumbered by other things, an element of 
trust, something sure and steadfast amid the dan- 
gers where many are suffering shipwreck. 

In looking to the office assigned to our hope of 
a life to come, we need not fall into a common ex- 
aggeration, as if this was intended to occupy all 
the thoughts of the life that now is, or to unfit us 
for one of this world's duties, or to throw into a 
contemptible perspective any of its proper occu- 
pations and enjoyments. There is such a thing as 
too much other-worldliness. There are those who, 
like the crazed ones of whom we read in the Gos- 
pels, have their dwelling in the tombs. A relig- 
ious literature, abounding in images of death, is 
in singular contrast with the spirit of the sacred 
writers, whose minds were glowing with the great 
thought of life, and whose motives are drawn, not 
so much from the fact that we are to die, as from 
the other fact, that we are to live forever. 

So does God speak to us in our nature. The 
great prompting of the soul is to fill the hour with 
what is really best for it, being held there, and 



SERMON XVII. 



173 



steadied there by that hope of something greater 
to which faithfulness in the present may lead. 
We will remember the figure of the text : hope is 
the anchor ; but the anchor is not the ship, still 
less is it the voyage. 

But it is the security of the ship, and the suc- 
cess of the voyage ; and being such, it may be 
thought strange that in the original constitution of 
our nature the hope of a future life is not stronger 
than we generally find it to be. When we speak 
of it as something given to us in the outfit of our 
voyage, we all see that such language applies only 
to a rudiment. That hope first dawns in a child's 
mind only as a faint glimmer of probability. In 
how many human beings is it hardly even that ! 
Why is this left to be so much the work of our 
negligent hands ? Into the bark of human life why 
is it not placed ready for its best use at once, — a 
thing completed from the first ? 

Those who ask these questions would do well 
to consider that there is nothing in man to which 
this language can apply ; that is to say, there is 
nothing that is completed from the first. Look to 
the lowest range of man's capacities, those which 
belong to him as an animal, — his sight, his 
strength, dexterity in the use of his limbs, skill in 
avoiding danger or overcoming obstacles, — every- 
thing begins as a rudiment, having its first exer- 
cise in feebleness, and growing by training. 

The same thing is true of the first dawnings of 



174 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



intellect, memory, judgment, reflection ; they all 
appear at first only as rudiments, and are the 
growth of culture. Some of man's highest capa- 
bilities are not born in him till maturer periods of 
life, and in some men are hardly born at all ; such 
as the power of abstract conception, the play of 
imagination, first appearing only as rudiments, and 
attaining strength only by culture. 

In like manner if we ascend to the crown of 
manhood, the spiritual nature of man, conscious- 
ness of an alliance with higher Beings, a sense of 
dependence on a divine power, a perception of the 
duty of knowing and obeying the Author of our 
existence, nothing but rudiments are these in their 
first exercise, and if they have any growth it is 
only by training. Indeed, the definition of a man 
is that he is a creature who only through his 
own struggles comes in possession of himself ; so 
that it was not without reason said that God did 
not create man by one act, but is creating him as 
long as man lives, and permits man to share the 
glory of creation, by making him in part self-cre- 
ating. And if man obtains his sight, the muscles 
of his arm, his memory, his judgment, his idea of 
God, only by a process of training, why should it 
be thought strange that the hope of a future life 
should begin as a feeble rudiment, and its growth 
be dependent upon culture ? 

But it may be asked, How does all this comport 
with the language of the text ? A dim, uncertain 



SERMON XVII. 



175 



hope, attaining any considerable strength only by 
time and painstaking, with what propriety may 
this be called an anchor, for this means something 
formed, solid, and ponderous, and of no use when 
it does not take a strong hold ? 

And to this, two considerations may be sug- 
gested in reply. 

First, the strong hold which a hope takes upon 
the mind depends upon the amount of thought we 
give to it, and not upon its degree of certainty. 
Indeed, some degree of uncertainty may even 
favor that strong hold. We see a familiar illus- 
tration in the case of wealth. If a young man 
knows that when he comes to be fifty years old he 
shall have a large estate, the thought of wealth 
will not take so strong a hold upon his mind as 
will a possible hope of that event. Certainty 
would beget indifference, while even a faint hope 
calls forth effort, quickens enterprise, wakes him 
early in the morning, employs him late at night, 
holds him to his plans, his industry, his prudence, 
his caution, and by keeping and steadying his mind 
hope is here an anchor. 

In this point of view, there may be moral ad- 
vantages in the vague and shadowy form in which 
the expectation of a life to come dawns upon the 
mind, thus keeping the old problem ever open and 
fresh, stimulating inquiry, putting the mind on the 
scent of every collateral confirmation, and invest- 
ing the subject with that solemn mystery before 
which all at times stand awed and hushed. 



176 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Especially may all this seem suited to the spir- 
itual trial of free-choosing beings, testing our will- 
ingness to think upon this subject, our self-control 
in keeping it before our minds, our moral gravita- 
tion toward it, our docility in heeding not the 
whirlwind and the earthquake only, but also the 
still small voice. Where there is no faith through 
a lack of these moral qualities, it would be quite 
vain to expect faith by any mere increase of evi- 
dence ; and they who were willfully deaf to Moses 
and the Prophets, would have no willingness to 
believe though one should rise from the dead. 

Thus we see that a dim hope just as much tests 
and proves a man's heart, as would a more lumin- 
ous hope, and may just as much steady and anchor 
his mind. 

Some men seem to fancy that they may dismiss 
all concern about a future life because its existence 
is not proved. But reflection must teach them 
that doubts do not justify indifference. Doubt is a 
state of mind in regard to a point for which there 
is some evidence ; for if there were no evidence 
at all there would be no doubt. We may call this 
evidence hope on its positive side, or doubt on its 
negative side ; still it is evidence that means some- 
thing, and means enough in the case of a future 
life to lead every man to treat this subject with 
tenderness and awe. 

I would even say a word in behalf of that mini- 
mum faith which is all that some men will acknowl- 



SERMON XVII. 



177 



edge. Perhaps it seems too much for them to 
affirm a hope of an immortal existence, for that 
may carry a claim which they do not mean to set 
up, or emphasize an expectation beyond what they 
may feel. But the other form of expressing their 
case they will adopt, saying that they are not free 
from a doubt in regard to a future life, for this 
language may be the more truthful description of 
their mind. 

If it be so, do they see to what a high office 
their very doubt may minister ? Is it an honest 
doubt, born not of heedlessness but of serious and 
earnest thought ? Does it live in no atmosphere 
of sneer and scorn, but amid aspirations for what 
is noble and divine ? Have they pondered it in 
thoughtful and holy hours, in connection with the 
solemn experiences of life, accumulating around it 
all such lights of study and reflection as they can 
command ? Has it been a doubt therefore which 
has kept their mind open and inquiring, lifted up 
their heart to what is pure, and trained their will 
to be prepared for the possibility which their doubt 
itself admits ? 

See then what their doubt has done for them. 
It has kept their soul, and steadied their soul. 
They may even filter the words of the text, and 
say, " Which doubt we have as an anchor to the 
soul." So true is it that the hold which a hope 
has upon the mind depends, as I have said, upon 

12 



178 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



the attention we give to it, and not upon its degree 
of certainty. 

The other consideration which diminishes our 
surprise that the hope of a life to come should be 
at first so weak is, that the growth of that hope, 
or, what is the same thing, the growth of its influ- 
ence over us, is just as surely, and just as much, 
the result of attention and culture, as intellectual 
power is the result of proper mental discipline. 
Perhaps it would not be easy to find a man, lead- 
ing a good life, and habitually reflecting upon his 
origin, duty, and probable destiny, who does not see* 
the evidence of a future existence grow brighter 
the longer he lives. It is perpetually gathering 
to itself fresh confirmations, just as Columbus, be- 
fore he reached the shore of the New World, was 
more and more confident he was nearing it, through 
many indications of drift, and sky, and birds, and 
spicy breezes. 

Of how many countless homes is this assured 
hope the light and joy, and has been in all Chris- 
tian ages ! By what a blessed ordination does the 
human heart, even under rude moral training, 
mature and mellow to the conviction of a life be- 
yond the grave ? Who can think of the millions 
who in every generation' have laid down in death, 
soothed and blessed with this hope, without feeling 
that its action is by a sort of law, as benignant as 
the growth of our bodies, or the expansion of our 
minds ? 



SERMON XVII. 



179 



It is no doubt true that there are multitudes 
around us who are utterly heedless of this hope. 
But what of that ? There are multitudes around 
us, likewise, in absolute mental darkness ; but this 
does not prove that they have not in them the 
germ of a high, intellectual power, which only 
needs the proper training to bring it out. We see 
that we are now living in the childhood of our 
race. God's plans will unfold themselves not till 
maturer epochs of humanity, when all shall be 
educated, both for the life that now is, and for that 
which is to come. But we must see, also, that 
our unconcern about a future life does not spring 
from God's neglect to place that anchor in the 
soul, but comes from our neglect in permitting that 
anchor to be encumbered and covered up by other 
things. 

We come back, therefore, to the point with 
which we began ; no mariner puts off all thoughts 
of his anchor till the storm comes. Who does 
not want to feel now the holding power of that 
great hope ? What sense of safety will it give 
us as we sail over smooth seas, and with favoring 
gales ; and without it, how can we meet those 
lowering tempests by which, this very night, our 
bark may be stranded ? 

We may see in Rome the monumental inscrip- 
tions of the early Christians, who died in the Cat- 
acombs in the old times of persecution. A favor- 
ite emblem with them was the anchor, symbol at 



180 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



once of their tempestuous lot, and of the calm 
trust with which it was borne. Over many a grave 
it was rudely but triumphantly cut in stone, by 
hurried hands, eighteen hundred years ago. They 
rode out the storm, and are now in their haven of 
rest ; and the anchor which was sufficient for them, 
shall it not be our safety and joy ? 

Come, then, hope of heaven, anchor of my soul 
tossed on these restless billows, fitted by the Di- 
vine hand into my bounding bark, come, minister 
to my safety and peace. In all my holy hours I 
will have my eye on this hope, and give it some- 
thing of that love which I feel for dear ones gone 
before, but from whom I know even death will 
not sunder me. This hope shall shine brighter 
and brighter to the perfect day ; this anchor amid 
all the storms of life shall be sure and steadfast. 



SERMON XVIII. 



REJOICE ALWAYS. 

"Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice." — Philip- 
pians iv. 4. 

" Ah, it is easier to say these words," some may 
exclaim, " than to obey them. Very pleasant, no 
doubt, it is to rejoice sometimes, when the world 
goes well with us. But how is it possible to rejoice 
alivays ? How can w T e rejoice in our misfortunes 
and disappointments, in our sicknesses and sor- 
rows, in that burden of anxiety and care that 
weighs down like lead, in the dark problems of 
existence, the mysterious shadows of wrong and of 
sin. Who was this Apostle Paul, and what was 
his position in life, that he could enjoin so strange 
a thing that we should rejoice always ? And then, 
as if he suspected that we might doubt whether he 
was in earnest, he took pains to repeat his injunc- 
tion, 6 Again I say, rejoice.' " 

I do not think we shall find much that will en- 
able us to explain away the force of these words, 
as if it was easier for him than for us to rejoice, 
if we consider ever so carefully St. Paul's position 
in life. On the other- hand we may find what 
will only increase our surprise. 



182 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



It could not very much have encouraged the 
Apostle to rejoice, the fact that he was then a pris- 
oner at Rome, with a capital charge resting on his 
head, and liable at any moment to lose his head, — 
an event which actually happened not long after 
writing the words of the text. 

Those were not exactly rejoicing times, when 
such men as Nero sat on the throne, and men of 
Paul's way of thinking were thrown as food to the 
wild beasts of the amphitheatre. Compared with 
those days, these in which we live would have 
seemed to the Apostle as the very paradise of 
heaven, and he would have thought it a thousand- 
fold easier to rejoice now than then. 

Why speak of sickness and disappointment, to 
which he was exposed equally with other men, 
when all these minor evils were not accounted 
anything by the side of the giant sufferings that 
cast their shadow on his lot ? 

But, it may be said, Paul was a man of enthu- 
siastic temperament, who went through every- 
thing with a high-strained feeling, braving it out 
the best that he could ; and his words are to be 
understood, as some may think, rather as showing 
the appearance he meant to put on, than as indi- 
cating what he actually felt. 

Of course, there can be no doubt that this 
Apostle was a man of warm feelings, and as little 
doubt is there that in all cases our spirits are af- 
fected by our natural temperament. But to re- 



SERMON XVIIL 



183 



solve the whole duty of keeping a rejoicing spirit 
into a matter of temperament is to overlook what 
runs like a thread of fire through all the Apostle's 
writings. He would convert natural temper into 
Christian duty. He would mature emotion into 
1 principle. He would discipline a flashing rapture 
into a calm, abiding joy. This is what he aimed 
at in the words of the text. 

Perhaps one reason why it seems so difficult 
to obey these words is, that we do not take into 
account the previous training that is necessary. 
Almost every great achievement seems impossible 
when we look only at the finished result. But we 
bring it within the sphere of a probable, perhaps of 
an easy accomplishment, when we follow it through 
the several steps by which it was reached. 

If you sit in your parlor holding your little son, 
three or four years old, in your lap, reading to 
him some beautiful story out of the Bible, about 
Joseph and his brethren, or the Shepherds of Beth- 
lehem, perhaps you close the volume, and say, 
" Ah, my boy, you must read these sweet words 
yourself." 

But what must he do before he can obey you ? 
He must learn his letters, and how to put them 
into words, and the meaning of words, and the 
construction of sentences, and get much experi- 
ence to invest those sentences with the life which 
your voice and manner give to them. You indi- 
cated the result ; but what a process of training is 



184 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



necessary for that result ? It may be that your 
little son may think that you require an impossi- 
bility of him, that he can never find those charm- 
ing stories in the black characters of the printed 
page. But if he takes the right steps he will find 
them there ; and those right steps consist in a 
process of preparatory training. 

So is it in the case before us. We can foster a 
calm and habitual joy if we take the right steps. 
If we will work one great truth into our mind and 
heart, into our daily thoughts, into our familiar 
and assured trusts, into our tender and grateful 
emotions, and make our will obedient to it, this 
one point will sweep away all the difficulties before 
us. The words of the text will no longer have an 
air of surprise, as betokening an impossibility, but 
will seem to indicate what will then be the spon- 
taneous temper of our heart. 

And that truth is no other than the simple one 
that God is our Father. The paternal character 
of God, the central and grandest truth of the 
Gospel, what a foundation does it lay for undis- 
turbed peace and joy ? It is for this reason that 
the Apostle tells us to rejoice in the Lord. It will 
be quite vain to think of finding this rejoicing any- 
where else. But it may be found here. There 
have been those who have been so penetrated and 
permeated with tins truth that they always felt the 
peace and joy of a child in its father's arms ; and 
why can it not be so with us ? 



SERMON XVIII. 



185 



Ah, who of us does not know the answer ? We 
have not made the fatherhood of God a reality to 
us. Instead of coming to the embrace of his pa- 
ternal arms, we have stood at a distance from Him, 
been forgetful of Him, and been more intent upon 
our own little schemes than upon his will. Per- 
haps we have done w r orse, and allowed some wrong 
indulgence to build up a wall of suspicion and 
fear between Him and us. 

Here is the chief foe of all joy. You may re- 
member in what words that great dramatic poet, 
who looked so deeply into the human heart, de- 
scribes the effect of our first sin : — 

"Not poppy, nor mandragora, 
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever medicine you to that sweet sleep 
Which you had yesterday." 

But if we keep a good conscience, if we take as 
much pains to work this one truth, that God is our 
father, into our habitual thoughts and deepest af- 
fections, take as much pains to do this as a little 
child takes to learn to read, or as we take to be- 
come skilled in any science or art, does any man 
doubt that we may lay the foundation of a peace 
and joy which the world cannot take away ? 

Let us take courage by marking how great this 
joy has been with thousands and thousands, even 
in want and suffering, in sickness and sorrow. 
How great it w 7 as with the early Apostles, who, 
in persecution, bonds, and imprisonment, made 



186 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



their dungeons echo with hymns of praise ! The 
first preaching of the gospel, in the midst of a 
gloomy and sullen world, was an outburst of ring- 
ing joy. How great that joy may be with us 
when we say, " Come, dear Father, God, I am 
thy child, thy loving child. Even in my trials 
thou dealest with me as with sons. Thy watch- 
ful eyes are on me ; thy blessing arms are around 
me ; and let what will befall me, in Thee I can 
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." 

But instead of such a Father, our mechanical 
philosophy has too often substituted an insensate, 
cast-iron, cog-and- wheel idol, whom we call, 
u Laws of Nature." What a blessing if we could 
root out from our minds and from our language 
all vestiges of that dualism, God and Nature, 
which, flowing in from a heathen fountain, has so 
long, in many ways, corrupted the stream of Chris- 
tian thought. Its worst effect has been to thrust 
in something between our hearts and Him who, 
as the old Greek historian expressed it, " before 
the first dawn marked out the path of the rising 
sun," 1 and has prevented our childlike confidence 
and love reposing on " Him first, Him last, Him 
midst, and without end." Why need we fear any- 
thing if we can always feel that it is in the embrace 
of the arms of an Almighty Father that we live, 
and move, and have our being ? 

I am not so blind to the facts of human nature 

1 npoy rjco Te koli 7]Xiov clvoltoXcls eiroieero tt]u 65oV. — Herodotus. 



SERMON XVIII. 



187 



and the experience of life as to suppose that even 
this truth of the fatherhood of God can make 
men insensible to disappointment and loss, to be- 
reavement and suffering. And it is no stoical in- 
difference that our blessed religion inculcates. Of 
course tears will come when our cherished plans 
are defeated, and our dearest friends are taken 
away. But even then, down underneath the sur- 
face, is a trust and peace that the w r orld knows not 
of, just as in the open well, into which have been 
thrown stones and sticks and dead leaves, there is, 
unseen at the bottom, cool and sparkling water 
which none of these disturbing causes have driven 
away. 

How infinitely soothing the reflection that under 
our Father's eye nothing can come to us through 
accident or chance ; that the plan of our life is all 
marked out by Him who numbers the hairs of our 
head, and that the events of the world, so often 
enigmatical to us, are ordered by a system that 
shall one day be seen to be founded in infinite 
wisdom and love. " If I go to sea," said a noble 
old heathen writer, " I am not fretting myself 
about the position of the sails and the movement 
of the ropes. I know nothing about these things, 
and quietly I leave them all to the commander of 
the ship. — And shall we not peacefully trust Him 
who is at the helm of the universe ? " 

This peaceful trust which even a pagan author 
enjoined, should it not be an element of a Chris- 
tian's joy ? 



188 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



All the wealth of the greatest money-monger 
in the world cannot do so much for our happiness. 

When men say that the existence of sin in the 
world gives a perpetual gloom to their spirits, and 
the thought of the doom of hereafter, so awful for 
many, casts before them the shadow of dismay, let 
us tell them that they do not understand this 
matter at all. Under the reign of a heavenly 
Father it is all coming out right and good. Some- 
how or other He will make even sin to praise 
Him, and probably He has not created one of his 
children to whom existence will not on the whole 
be a blessing. Rejoice rather in that love which 
will in time blot out all evil, just as the sun dries 
up the muddy pools of the street. 

Some may say, again, that the frequent con- 
trasts in the conditions of life naturally sadden the 
heart ; and how can it be otherwise, they may ask, 
when we see riches and .pleasures fall to the lot of 
the least deserving, and poverty and suffering at- 
tend the steps of virtue? But who can feel that 
riches and pleasures are the fitting reward of vir- 
tue ? Who does not see that these cheap things 
are bestowed seemingly at random, as if on pur- 
pose to show how lightly God esteems them ? 
Who can doubt that He has something infinitely 
higher in store as the reward of great price in his 
sight ? Ought not the thought of that bliss, which 
will by and by crown the deserving, span with a 
bow of hope and joy all the inequalities of life ? 



SERMON XVIIL 



189 



I have read a Rabbinical legend which has some 
pertinency here. The wise Ak£ba was on a jour- 
ney, accompanied by three learned doctors of the 
law. As they approached a remote city they 
heard sounds of tumultuous festivity ; upon which 
the doctors wept aloud, but Akeba smiled. " Why 
do you smile ? " they asked. " Why do you 
weep ? " he inquired in reply. " We weep at the 
mournful contrast," they said. " This pagan city, 
where every day the name of God is blasphemed, 
and incense is burned to idols, is filled with exulta- 
tion, while our loved Jerusalem, and the Temple 
where Jehovah was worshipped, have been burned 
to ashes. And you smile ! " " Yes," replied 
Akeba. " Exactly for this do I smile in hope and 
faith. For if God has been so liberal of his gifts 
to his enemies, how great must be the blessings 
which He has in store for his friends ! " 

I often think of the simple saying of an old 
man whom I once knew, and who, in the serene 
temper and cheerful spirits in which I always 
found him in his little cottage at the foot of the 
hill, seemed to be the happiest man in the world. 
At every adverse event he would say, " Well, it 
is for the best, else it would not be." 

Can we not make the philosophy and the re- 
ligion of that saying enter more deeply into our 
souls ? What if we should try it for two years, 
for one year ; yea, for six months, thoughtfully 
and devoutly say, whenever anything goes against 
us, " Well, it is for the best, else it would not be." 



190 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Finally, to all other inducements to the cultiva- 
tion of a rejoicing spirit, I think this may be added, 
that nothing that we can give can be more accept- 
able to God. No doubt, if we judge what religion 
is by the temper of many so-called religious men, 
we may well suppose it to be a religion of sorrow, 
whose yoke is galling, and its burden heavy, and 
may call gloom godliness, and a disfigured coun- 
tenance Christian piety. But to walk through 
life desponding and sad, seems a homage to the 
Evil One, not a service to the Father. A rejoicing 
heart is a perpetual hymn of praise. I can imagine 
nothing upon which the Supreme Being may be 
supposed to look down with more pleasure than 
upon his children, happy in the thought of Him, 
his presence, his providence, his all-guiding and 
all-blessing love, without which not even a spar- 
row falls to the ground. 

And especially must it be pleasing to Him to 
see that the adverse events of life, sent to try 
them and prove them, and thus often blessings in 
disguise, do not destroy their cheerful spirits ; that 
if troubled on every side they are not distressed, 
and if perplexed they are not in despair. Who 
can forget those sweet words of Jesus, " In the 
world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good 
cheer." Whatever happens, be of good cheer ; 
and let the Apostle's words come to us freighted 
with that full intensity of meaning he gave to 
them when he said 3 " Rejoice always ; and again 
I say, rejoice." 



SERMON XrX. 



TWO SIDES TO DEATH. 
" This mortal put on immortality." — 1 Corinthians xv. 53. 

How little can we know what death is till we 
see it on both sides, — the side of the immortal, as 
well as the side of the mortal ! 

In this world, we see it only on this side ; and 
it is the side of weakness and decline, of separa- 
tion and tears, of the shroud and the grave. In 
the other world, we shall see it on the other side : 
the side of immortal vigor, and blissful greetings, 
and triumphant and undying joy. 

The mortal side of death is the wrong side ; the 
immortal side is the right side. The design and 
plan are there developed, completed, forever held 
up to view ; and what false judgments must we 
necessarily make till that immortal side be seen. 

We can comprehend this only through the aid 
of illustrations drawn from nature or art ; and in 
them bereaved hearts have often found solace and 
hope. Let me give a few words to the description 
of an illustration of this kind, which seems to me 
to have some significance. 

Among the objects of interest which visitors to 
the French capital usually go to see is, what is 



192 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



called, the Gobelins Manufactory, which gives em- 
ployment to several hundred in making the large 
tapestry with which apartments were formerly 
hung. It takes its name, I believe, from a cele- 
brated manufacturer who carried on the business 
centuries ago, before the modern fashion of finishing 
apartments by plastering and papering had driven 
tapestry from general use. But the palaces of 
kings, the castles and chateaus of nobles, sometimes 
still retain the old hangings, which give an air of 
antiquity and princely grandeur to their homes. 

To such perfection was the art carried that 
memorable scenes are represented with a fineness 
of execution, a brilliancy of coloring, and a power 
of withstanding injury, that made tapestry rival 
the most costly paintings of the world. The estab- 
lishment I allude to is a monopoly of the French 
government ; and if hangings for the walls of a 
single room cost many thousand dollars, the dis- 
tinction of having them is only made the greater. 

Admitted into an immense apartment, you see 
the warp of many pieces, twenty or thirty feet 
long, set up perpendicularly. The workman is 
seated on the wrong side of the tapestry, and you 
go up to see what he is doing. You observe noth- 
ing in the work of drawing threads through the 
tight lines of the warp to pay for his sitting there 
week after week, and in some cases for many years. 
You see nothing but broken ends. You detect no 
meaning in the design. It suggests to you nothing 



SERMON XIX. 



193 



but toil, care, weariness, thrown away, reaping no 
reward, bringing forth no value, ending only in 
disappointment and loss. 

So you think, judging by what you there see. 
But the workman sees more than you. His mind 
is fixed on a plan. He is continually considering 
how his work will look when viewed from the 
other side. Every day's toil, every thoughtful care, 
every broken end, has reference to a design, an 
attitude, and coloring, that will stand admired for- 
ever. 

Come round now to the other side of his work, and 
the whole will be explained to you at a glance. 
Here is the result to which all before pointed, and 
to which all that care and labor were directed. 
Here it is, in the rounded form, the speaking ges- 
ture, the brilliant color, in the starting into life of 
some scene of immortal interest — the marriage 
solemnity, the stately procession, the high debate, 
the glorious combat, the flush of victory — a pic- 
ture of living, unfading beauty, to adorn a regal 
hall. 

I have given more words to this description than 
I intended ; but such is the illustration I had in 
my mind. Let me now take up one or two points 
which it suggests. 

That first view of the work I have described is 
like the present view of death. Seen from this 
world, death appears a mystery, something ending 
in weariness, disappointment, and loss, a tangled 

13 



194 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



fretted skein of broken ends. The unbeliever, 
the skeptic, the mere man of the world, the carnal 
eye, sees nothing but this. Indifference, insensi- 
bility, neglect, a habit of looking at things only 
in their vulgar associations, and of sneering at all 
generous and upward instincts of the soul, seem 
in time to cut men off from the possibility of reach- 
ing any higher conclusion, and entertaining any 
higher hope. 

It is not the least argument in favor of a re- 
ligious life, that when death comes into our house- 
hold we have something else to think of beside 
this wrong side of death. We can admit the pos- 
sibility that there is another side, and draw comfort 
and hope from that belief ; and thus in the darkest 
passages, and the most crushing bereavements, can 
have a stay and support which the worldling knows 
nothing of. 

If in this wide world there be anybody to be 
pitied, it is he who, when he finds the dearest ob- 
jects of his heart taken from him, is bewildered and 
amazed, sinks down with nothing to rest his foot 
Upon, because he looks upon this side of death as 
the only side, and has never sent one careful 
thought beyond, nor lighted up one bright hope to 
cheer the grave. 

" Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lavs his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 



SERMON XIX. 



195 



Who hath not learned in hours of faith, 
The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 

That life is ever lord of death, 
And love can never lose its own." 1 

Contrast with him the composure, dignity, great- 
ness, the resources, the spiritual wealth and conso- 
lation of the man who looks calmly beyond this side 
of death to the other side, and who, in the triumph 
of his faith, can say, 44 We know if the earthly house 
of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building 
of God eternal in. the heavens. Therefore are they 
before the throne of God, and serve Him day and 
night in his temple, and He that sitteth on the 
throne shall dwell among them. They shall hun- 
ger no more, nor thirst any more, neither shall the 
sun light on them or any heat ; and God shall lead 
them unto living fountains of waters, and shall 
w r ipe away all tears from their eyes." 

In the work of art to which I have alluded, the 
workman, seated on the wrong side of the picture, 
has his mind all the while intent upon the result 
that will appear on the right side ; and here I 
think we may find another suggestive truth. 
There is a divine workman on this side of death ; 
but all that he does has reference to results that 
will appear only when we see death on the other 
side. It is because we do not see the design in his 
mind that the operations of his hand are now a 
mystery to us. But he sees it, and works after it, 
and all that he does furthers it. 

1 Whittier. 



196 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Every weakness, and languishing, and wasting 
away, and pain, of the dying ; and every alternate 
hope and fear of the surviving ; every night of 
watching, every anguish of bereavement, every tear 
shed at the last struggle, every shudder at the open 
grave, all have their purpose ; all shall work some 
new grace, some divine beauty, into the final result 
to be unfolded on the other side, where we shall 
feel that it is worth all the suffering we have en- 
dured. 

What a comfort to believe this ! And here again 
we mark the supporting power of Christian faith. If 
I believe that all these bitter experiences of my life 
are not without their meaning and use, that they 
have reference to something hereafter, something 
which they will work out infinitely better than I 
can now conceive of, what a motive here is to 
patience, and resignation, and trust, and courage ! 
Under the inspiration of this faith, how have men 
cheerfully suffered the loss of all things, and 
counted not their lives dear unto them, and met 
whatever God was pleased to put upon them with 
the smile of triumph and joy. 

Why should they not so meet it ? And why 
should not we so meet it ? Why should we de- 
fraud ourselves of the strongest stay and sweetest 
sokce of this world, — our trust that even our af- 
flictions may work out for us a far more exceeding 
and an eternal weight of glory, if we look not at 
the things which are seen, but at the things which 
are not seen. 



SERMON XI XT 



197 



And this brings me to the last point suggested 
by the illustration which I have described. What 
revelations will be made to us when, in God's time, 
.we pass on to see death on the right side, the side 
of the immortal ! 

But in the thought of that hour, how are all 
our anticipations hushed to silence by the assur- 
ance that " eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, 
nor hath it entered into the heart of man to con- 
ceive what things God hath prepared for them 
that love Him." Here, as in other things also, we 
must wait the great teacher, Death. It is but a 
little while and we shall know as we are known ; 
and all that was before dark, mysterious, and fear- 
ful, shall be explained. Every tie that has, been 
severed, every tear that has been shed, every 
secret anguish of the soul, shall bring out God's 
great design in colors of immortal light and un- 
fading beauty. 

And the thing which in the future life we shall 
most wonder at perhaps will be that we so misun- 
derstood death, so feared it, so called it an awful 
power, and king of terrors, and so mourned when 
those we loved passed upwards. We shall see it 
as God's kind boon to his children, the unfolding 
of his designs, the explanation of mysteries, the 
disclosure of immortal beauty, the birth of unfad- 
ing vigor, the gentle laying aside of the perishable 
so that nothing but life may remain. 
In the Museo Pio-Clementino, in the Vatican 



198 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



at Rome, is a marble sarcophagus, made before the 
Christian era, of exquisite workmanship, on the 
sides of which is represented the departed spirit, 
in the form of a beautiful youth, contemplating 
the earthly body it has just left. An air of in- 
effable repose, such as only the finest Greek art 
knew how to portray, attests the joy of the 
emancipated soul. It is grateful to know that a 
conviction of that coming joy was felt even in 
those early ages ; but how much more real and 
vital should it be to Christian faith than it was to 
pagan art? 

Finally, let us mark how that conviction may 
grow stronger and stronger the longer we live. 
Amid all the fresh hopes of youth, and in the pres- 
sure of the business of the world, we may not look 
upon death as the blessing which we described it to 
be. Xor was it designed that we then should. 
It would unfit us for the duties of this present life. 
Accordingly we have an instinctive dread of death 
as long as it is intended we shall live ; but when 
the time of our departure approaches, if we have 
led a good life, and have often pondered our great 
hopes and destiny, that dread is mercifully taken 
away. A willingness to go is the common result. 

Physicians of long experience have often borne 
witness to this fact. On a sick and dying bed 
there is for the most part a calm resignation, and a 
cheerful acquiescence in the Divine will ; and it 
often leaves a smile of triumph on the marble face. 



SERMON XIX. 



199 



It is as if the soul had some glimpse of that other 
side of death even before its splendors are fully 
revealed to sight. "It is all well," " O, how 
beautiful,'' " Joy, joy," " No, I would not live 
longer," — such have frequently been the exclama- 
tions of those who are held up, comforted, enrap- 
tured with the faith that this mortal puts on im- 
mortality. 



SERMON XX. 



MEMORY IN HEAVEN. 
" Call to remembrance the former days.'' — Hebrews x. 32. 

By a law of our nature we are perpetually turn- 
ing to the past. The longer we live the more do 
we think of the past. How dear to every man is 
the place of his birth ! How he loves to revisit 
it, and to call up the images and associations that 
there come thronging to his mind ! The further 
he is removed from it in distance, as well as in 
time, the dearer it becomes. If we had been taken 
years ago to the other side of the globe, and had 
there passed a large portion of our life, how many 
times should we send our thoughts over seas and 
continents to the dear natal home ! 

When men arrive at old age they live almost 
altogether in the past. Every scene, companion, 
delight of childhood, recurs to the mind with 
deeper and deeper power. How intense the desire 
of the old to die in their native land, that the hills, 
sun, sky, which filled their eyes with joy long 
j^ears ago, may now fill their parting vision of 
earth. If this be denied, they long to have their 
bodies returned to the place of their birth. " Re- 



SERMON XX. 



201 



member — Danvers," were the last words of 
George Peabody. 

It has been often remarked that the second 
childhood, that of old age, resembles the first child- 
hood, not only in the prevailing temper and tastes, 
but, also, oftentimes, in the expression of the feat- 
ures ; so that there is frequently a striking simi- 
larity between the face of the old man and the 
face he had when a child — the first day, as an 
old author expresses it, prefiguring the last. 1 
Perhaps one explanation of this is that by living 
so much in the past the mind reproduces, with the 
scenes and objects of childhood, its thoughts and 
affections also. 

Will this law of our nature which leads us to 
call to remembrance the former days, still attend 
us, and be a part of our soul, after we have left 
this world ? From that other life shall we send 
our thoughts back to this life ? Shall we then 
turn to this planet, the home of our childhood, and 
gaze upon it with emotions deeper than any words 
can express, deeper even than we can now con- 
ceive ? 

Who can doubt that it will be so ? This great 
law of memory must be an indestructible part of 
the soul. The sublime disclosures of the spiritual 
world will not obliterate the past, nor make us 
forget it, but will forever reflect new light and 
new interest upon it. 

1 " Primusque dies dedit extremura. 



202 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



" No shade can last 
In that deep dawn beyond the tomb, 
But clean from marge to marge shall bloom 
The eternal landscape of the past." 1 

I care not now to refer to the repeated instances 
in the Scriptures where those who are in the spirit 
land are represented as still feeling a deep interest 
in the scenes of earth. I do not need the proof 
here afforded. I have a higher evidence. The law 
is written on my soul. I am to retain the same 
fundamental elements of my nature after death 
that I have now. These ties which bind me to 
the past are among the strongest I possess. I 
cannot doubt that they will forever bind me to 
the past. When I have left the earth and soared 
to that other world which may be the scene of my 
immortal existence, they will there bind me to the 
past. To this planet, the earth, shining perhaps 
from my new abode as a star now shines in the 
firmament of heaven, how shall my eyes, thoughts, 
affections, turn with emotions faintly represented 
by those with which the aged now turn to the 
spot of their birth ! 

If you go out in a calm night, and, looking up, 
concentrate your thoughts upon some one planet 
shining in its brightness and beauty over your 
head, perhaps you may not find it impossible to 
imagine that planet to be the place where you first 
received the precious gift of existence, where your 



1 Tennyson. 



SERMON XX. 



203 



infant faculties were awakened into action, where 
you performed your mortal part of childhood, 
manhood, and age, where you wove around you 
the sweet ties of affection, where was the scene 
of your struggles, disappointments, sorrows, and 
joys, and where you finally left your mortal body, 
which was there committed dust to dust. 

If by some effort of the imagination you thus 
suppose yourself to have left the earth, and to be 
now looking back upon it from your heavenly 
home, can you not in part anticipate the feelings 
with which you may call to remembrance the 
former days ? Is it presuming too much to attempt 
to name some of those feelings, and to try to get 
a foresight of the action of memory in heaven ? 

We may well suppose that one of the first feel- 
ings with which a disembodied spirit may look 
down upon the earth will be an unspeakable at- 
tachment to this scene of its birthplace into life. 
Other stars might shine around even more re- 
splendent than this, wheeling swiftly in their mazy 
dances, and joining in the music of the spheres ; 
but how strongly would our thoughts centre on 
our natal planet ! 

There we first opened our eyes on the fair 
works of God. There we first felt our hearts 
thrill with the emotions of love. There we re- 
ceived our first perception of the everlasting law 
of right. There was our first sorrow, our first 
suffering, our first struggle with temptation, our 



204 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



first experience of guilt and sin. There we sus- 
tained the relations which have yielded such price- 
less blessings, of son or daughter, of husband or 
wife, of father or mother. There we toiled on 
through life's fitful dream, and garnered up that 
harvest of remembrances — those lessons of wis- 
dom and duty, of obedience and faith, of hope and 
of trust, or of fears and regrets, of shame and re- 
morse — which has become a part of the inalien- 
able possessions of the soul. 

And there, too, on that planet, as the soul may 
say, I received my deliverance from the body by 
the event which men call death. It came to me 
by a sudden surprise, or after a brief illness, or by 
a gradual decay ; and by the side of many loved 
forms, I left that clay covering which was once 
the living organs of my will, and there it now is, 
by the beautiful laws of change, mouldering back 
to its original dust. 

The spot of God's universe — dear mother 
Earth — endeared to us by all these ties, how could 
we help looking down upon it with an ever deep- 
ening affection ? After many cycles of existence 
w T e may turn with fresh, thrilling interest to the 
place where commenced all that we are and have ; 
nor can we conceive that the time will ever come 
when we shall cease to call fondly to remembrance 
the former days of our lot there. 

Perhaps another feeling with which we may 
look down upon our mortal abode may be one of 



SERMON XX. 



205 



surprise that while we lived there in the flesh we 
allowed so many things to disturb us. Where are 
all those troubles now ? How many cares which 
we thought were mountains then have all sunk 
down into mole-hills now, perhaps even cannot be 
recalled in our remembrance of the past ! How 
many objects, which we toiled and fretted to reach, 
were of no substantial worth, — indeed those on 
which our happiness and well-being were least 
dependent ! How many disappointments under 
which we then sunk in despair, as if we had met 
the ruin of all we had to live for, were really de- 
signed for our good, and were in the end the best 
events we ever met ! How much we run, and 
toiled, and struggled, with an anxious, feverish 
spirit, as if everything depended upon our care, 
or would be decided by the cast of a die, while 
we were forgetful of that mighty and directing 
Hand which was over all, and of that calm and 
undisturbed Providence which was quietly carry- 
ing on His own designs, and under which all our 
l-estless fretfulness was only impertinence and folly ! 

In our future life we may say, I can see that 
all-disposing Providence now ; would that I had 
seen it, and had serenely confided in it then. 
What an addition to my earthly happiness it would 
have been had I then felt as a trusting child in its 
father's arms, and cheerfully left all the allotments 
of my little day to his infinite wisdom and love ! 



206 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



Shining upon the disembodied spirit as a far 
distant planet in the firmament, may not the earth 
be hereafter looked upon with still another emo- 
tion ? May we no.t wonder that, while we had 
our mortal abode upon it, we cherished no higher 
sense of the purpose for which we were living ? 
We may then say, we see plainly now that our 
life in the flesh had a divine purpose to accom- 
plish, as the beginning of an immortal career of 
discipline and progress. What a destiny is sug- 
gested by that one word, immortality! It seems 
as if a child of earth would think of nothing but 
that. What a joy and triumph it must give him, 
if he feels it, — 

" And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended." 

To that divine and undying inheritance did I 
send forward frequent thought, so as to bring down 
its supports and inspirations to cheer me then ? 
Ah, how blind to it I was, while I was taken up 
with petty objects which concerned only that nar- 
row point and brief moment of my existence ; and 
even in my management of these, how little 
thought had I for those everlasting realities of 
truth, justice, mercy, and love, which, heeded or 
unheeded, have left their imperishable mark on the 
soul ? When from my present point of view I 
look down to my life there in the flesh, it seems as 
if that life was passed in a dream. 



SERMON XX. 



207 



I was like the poor worldling in the old legend 
who was bent down, raking the ground, while 
angels were hovering over him, offering him dia- 
monds and crowns if only he would look up. I 
wonder how I could have been so blind to inter- 
ests which I now see are as enduring as eternity. 
Had I the privilege of living that life over again, 
what different results would I make it bring forth. 

Still again, it may be that from our heavenly 
home we shall look down upon the earth with re- 
gret that we did not strive more wisely to make 
our hearts happy there. We may then see how 
false and impious it is to say that the mortal life is 
only a vale of tears, and that man must postpone 
all expectation of true enjoyment till he leaves 
this world. We may then see that he who is not 
fitted to be happy on earth, is not fitted to be 
happy in heaven. There is the same God there 
and here, the same laws of conscience and duty, 
the same elements of internal peace and joy. He 
who does not have these cannot be happy any- 
where, on earth or in heaven ; he who does have 
them may be happy everywhere, on earth or in 
heaven. 

Doubtless, the joys of heaven are fuller, and 
richer, and so much deeper, that those of earth 
may be called as nothing in the comparison. Still 
it is ingratitude to slight or disparage the latter. 
The good man must find something of a heaven 



208 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



below, or he cannot find anything of a heaven 
above. He is not made all over anew the mo- 
ment he arrives in the spirit land. He is the same 
being there that he was before. He must have 
harmony in his soul, or the music of paradise can 
afford no joy to him ; while if he has that harmony 
w T ithin, some strains of heavenly melody will reach 
him even on earth. 

Looking down from the spirit land upon our 
mortal abode on earth, may not another feeling be 
that of wonder that mortals dread death as much 
as they do ? We may see that it is but leaving a 
perishable body, and why should we so cling to 
that ? We may see that it w r as but forsaking the 
fetters and weights of the flesh, and why should 
we so dread to lay them aside ? We may see that 
all immortality is before us, and why should we so 
pant and struggle for a few mortal breaths ? We 
see that we carry with us beyond the grave all 
that we ought truly to prize — our conscious be- 
ing and identity, all our deep affections, all our 
pure hopes and longings, all the realities of God 
and a Saviour, and the love for them which neither 
life nor death can take away — why should we 
shrink so much from that short journey, attended 
by no loss, but bringing an unspeakable gain ? 
From our high view we see it to be only a wise 
and beneficent change, a new birth from the per- 
ishable to the imperishable ; and from that immor- 



SERMON XX. 



209 



tal stand-point death may seem, in the strong word 
of the Apostle, abolished ; it is nothing, it is swal- 
lowed up of life. 

And yet how obvious it must be, let me add in 
the last place, that all our remembrances of our 
mortal abode must take their color and character 
from the kind of lives we led on earth. 

I shall not dwell on this thought. Who of us 
does not feel it ? Imagine yourself looking down 
upon the earth, with quickened remembrances of 
all your former days, having before your mind at 
once all that you there have done, the thought of 
the objects for which you there lived, and of the 
loves you there cherished, the motives by which 
you were there governed, and the whole net re- 
sults of your earthly career. Who does not see 
that the feelings with which we shall look upon 
our natal home will be colored by what all these 
have been ? 

If conscious that we have spent our mortal life 
to no good purpose, in vain can we try to shun the 
remembrance of it, though we exclaim, u O earth, 
hide my careless and neglectful life. Fall, ye dis- 
tant mountains, to bury it. Roll, ye waves of ocean, 
to wash it away." But if our survey of the past 
gives us assurance that we lived mindful of God, 
and duty, and heaven, lived amid sweet affections, 
and kind and beautiful deeds, what tenfold bright- 
ness will that thought add to the lustre of that far 
shining world ? 

14 



210 



WORDS OF A FRIEND. 



It is in our power now to make that joyful splen- 
dor sure. It is in our power now to give that 
thrilling pleasure to all that future life in which, 
as long as we retain our conscious being, we shall 
call to remembrance the former days. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



